Showrooming Increases 156 Percent from 2012, Finds New Research from Vibes

CHICAGO, Oct.10, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Vibes, a mobile marketing technology leader, today published its second annual Mobile Consumer Report: Combat Showrooming with Personalization, revealing consumer attitudes and behaviors related to smartphone usage in retail stores, personalization and mobile messaging preferences.

As the holiday shopping season approaches, this research provides insights about the reality of "showrooming 2.0," where the trend of showrooming is now a mainstream shopping behavior that most shoppers are doing. To answer the showrooming challenge, retailers must deploy personalized mobile marketing strategies that deliver relevant and timely content to consumers.

The Current State of Showrooming

• Since 2012, there has been a 156-percent increase in consumers who purchased a product from a competitor while in a retail store.
• Forty-four percent of consumers showroom frequently and 36 percent use their mobile devices to shop more in-store than they did two years ago.
• After consumers compared prices on their phones while in-store, 47 percent completed transactions; 45 percent went elsewhere to purchase items; and 7 percent did not make purchases. This shows that retailers have about a 50/50 chance against showrooming.
• Half of consumers said they have looked up a product review and/or prices on a competitor's website while recently shopping in a retail store, highlighting the fact that consumers are seeking quality merchandise at the best price. This is a significant increase from 2012, where only 31 percent of consumers looked up a product review and 33 percent compared prices on a competitor's website.

How Personalization Drives Purchases

• Eighty-nine percent of consumers would sign up for mobile messages if they were personalized, yet only 18 percent of consumers regularly see personalization from retailers and brands.
• Among those consumers who either texted or scanned a QR code to get more information/a special in-store deal, 42 percent said doing so made them feel better about the purchases they made. However, 40 percent — up from 14 percent in 2012 — made a purchase they had not planned on making beforehand because of this valuable information, showing that mobile product information delivered via text and QR codes can drive purchases.
• Sixty percent of consumers seek mobile content that uses their preferences and interests— favorite shopping categories, brands and sizes, making this by far the most important aspect of personalization.

"Showrooming is more prevalent than ever before," said Jack Philbin, co-founder and CEO of Vibes. "The antidote to showrooming is creating contextually relevant and personalized mobile experiences that motivate and influence consumers to take notice and make purchases. If retailers don't establish personalized mobile strategies, they'll increasingly face unengaged consumers who will continue to browse in-store and buy online from competitors."

Click here to download the 2013 Mobile Consumer Report: Combat Showrooming with Personalization. Vibes will also be sharing key findings of this report during a webinar Thursday, Oct. 24, at 1 p.m. CDT.

Methodology
The Vibes Mobile Consumer Report was fielded by the independent panel research firm Equation Research. Responses were generated from a survey among 1,000 smartphone owners from their online opinion panel. All respondents are age 18 or older and living in the continental United States. The margin of error for the survey is +/-3.1 percent.

About Vibes
Founded in 1998, Vibes is a mobile marketing technology leader that helps some of the world's biggest brands acquire, engage and deepen relationships throughout the customer lifecycle. Vibes' Catapult mobile relationship management (MRM) platform enables brands, agencies and media companies to launch a wide range of mobile solutions. Using Vibes' MRM approach, companies forge immediate and long-lasting customer relationships by tapping into the uniquely personal nature of the mobile phone. Recently named a "Cool Vendor in Mobile Marketing" by Gartner Research, the company has delivered more than 3 billion mobile experiences on behalf of customers that include Sears, Home Depot, Verizon, Allstate, The Gap, Tribune, Fox, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Gannett and the Chicago Bulls. Vibes is one of only seven Tier 1 aggregators with secure, direct connections to all the major carriers. To learn more about Vibes, visit www.vibes.com or connect on Facebook.com/VibesMedia or Twitter.com/Vibes_Media.

SOURCE Vibes