New iPad Shopping App Revolutionizes Tablet Shopping Experience

ShopAdvisor Combines Best-in-Class Comparison Shopping with Deferred Purchasing Model for Millions of iPad Users

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Evoqu

Feb 28, 2012, 05:00 ET

BOSTON, Feb. 28, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- ShopAdvisor, the award winning shopping app, is now available for the iPad, the world's most popular tablet. With ShopAdvisor for iPad, millions of consumers now have the ability to browse through their favorite products, get prices, research and product details, and have ShopAdvisor keep "watch" over them until they're ready to buy. To download ShopAdvisor for iPad, visit http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/shopadvisor-ipad-edition/id503854198?mt=8.

Named the best of iPhone Utilities category in App Store Rewind 2011, ShopAdvisor brings its proven deferred purchasing model to the iPad. ShopAdvisor for iPad embraces natural shopping behaviors in which consumers first discover a product but may deliberate for days or weeks before they make a purchase. ShopAdvisor has found that consumers often defer their purchases, particularly for premium items. The average length of time between when a consumer "watches" an item they see online and makes an eventual purchase is slightly more than 12 days.

"Consumers have adopted their printed magazine shopping behavior to the iPad – they browse, discover new ideas, do research, and mark products that they may purchase. We built ShopAdvisor for iPad from the ground up to indulge users with a page-flipping experience," said Andrew Mahon, co-founder of Evoqu. "The ShopAdvisor watch button is the iPad equivalent of bending down a corner of the page or taping a sticky note to remember it for later."

Hundreds of thousands of consumers have already used the ShopAdvisor "watch" button to keep track of products so they can be reminded of them later when they are ready to make a purchase or when the price shifts. When a user "watches" an item in ShopAdvisor, they later receive an alert when the price has gone down, or a reminder on a date specified by the user. These user-requested reminders have the effect of re-engaging the consumer in the shopping process. More than 78% of the alerts are acted upon, and 16% lead to a visit to a seller's website, more than 10 times the industry average clickthru rate for search ads. In the month of December 2011, ShopAdvisor alerted users to more than $2.1 million in savings on "watched" items.

Convenience of the Couch with the Power of a Personal Shopper

The tablet has become a powerhouse shopping tool. According to the Internet Advertising Bureau, nearly three-quarters of tablet owners use their device to make weekly purchases. The ShopAdvisor deferred purchasing platform was designed with the understanding that the majority of that online shopping time is actually spent browsing and window shopping. Over time, it leads to an eventual purchase, a behavior called "couch commerce."

The ShopAdvisor for iPad shopping app includes the same WatchList capabilities as the award-winning iPhone, Android and Kindle versions of the application. It provides expert buying advice for a wide variety of product categories, and shows product details, images and reviews for more than 30 million products, and over 100,000 online and local merchants.

Features specifically designed for the iPad include:

  • Magazine style navigation. Users casually flip through "pages" of search results.
  • Browse through categories. In addition to searching for a product, users have the option of selecting a product category (e.g., women's clothing, digital cameras) and flipping through a full catalog of products.
  • Collections. ShopAdvisor includes dozens of curated collections of products – shoes, furniture, toys, consumer electronics, appliances – selected by leading taste-makers and industry observers.
  • Price history. Each product page includes a multiple month price history, providing users with an at-a-glance indication if the current price is higher or lower than usual.

Deferred purchasing behavior

Deferred purchasing behavior typically occurs when consumers are looking at high consideration items -- products that have a relatively high price tag, products that require consultation with another person, and products that the buyer will live with for a long period of time.

The average price of an item on a ShopAdvisor WatchList is $276. Among the "most watched" items in ShopAdvisor users' WatchLists are TVs, women's shoes, digital cameras, men's shoes, laptops, wristwatches, toys, handbags, kitchen appliances and XBox 360 consoles.

This is where a deferred purchase platform has its greatest value – in the time between initial interest and a future buying event. Consumers discover products while browsing or watching television, use their tablet and other devices to keep them under consideration, and make a purchase when the time or price is right.

About Evoqu

Evoqu, Inc. develops ShopAdvisor, a deferred purchasing platform that connects consumers' initial interest in a product with their eventual purchase. ShopAdvisor's cloud-based services are used by blogs, media sites, and third-party applications to incorporate deferred purchasing into their user experience. Evoqu has also developed its own deferred purchasing shopping application for iPhone, iPad, Android, Kindle and the web. Founded in 2011, Evoqu is based in Boston, MA.

Screen shots of ShopAdvisor for iPad

http://www.flickr.com/photos/68108934@N04/sets/72157629466854083/

  1. Home Screen
  2. Flipping a page experience
  3. Product page
  4. Watch Button
  5. Online and Local Deals
  6. Product Collection curated by leading taste-makers and industry observers

To obtain a copy of ShopAdvisor visit the following

References

  • "72pc of tablet owners make purchases on weekly basis: IAB," Mobile Commerce Daily, Feb. 2, 2012. http://bit.ly/ABKO7z
  • Mobile and Online Journey Observation, Internet Advertising Bureau UK, January 31, 2012 http://bit.ly/z6kGXu

Contact: [email protected]

SOURCE Evoqu

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