More Customers To Shop Using Smartphones This Holiday Season

CSD Staff
Nov 06, 2012

Shoppers look to embrace the use of their smartphones or tablets to save time and money during the holiday shopping season.

A new CouponCabin.com survey has found that more than one-quarter (27%) of U.S. adults will use their smartphone or tablet for their holiday shopping this year. In addition, 83% of those who will use their smartphone for holiday shopping this year reported they will be doing so because of the convenience. This survey was conducted online nationwide by Harris Interactive on behalf of CouponCabin.com from Sept. 26-28, 2012 among 2,523 U.S. adults aged 18 and older.

The majority of smartphone users who plan to use their devices for shopping this year will use them for research. Seventy percent said they will use their smartphone to do research ahead of their shopping trips, while 59% will use it to do research in-store. When asked what else they will use their smartphone for this shopping season, U.S. adults said the following:
Make a purchase 58%
Redeem coupons 53%
Search for coupons 48%
Other 5%

With mobile devices making many everyday tasks easier, shoppers are embracing them this holiday season,” said Jackie Warrick, president and chief savings officer at CouponCabin.com. “Not only will shoppers use them to make purchases and trim their to-buy lists, but the research they do on them will help save time, make good buying decisions and ultimately, save money.

In addition to using mobile devices to keep their shopping on track and find coupons, shoppers are interested in taking their traditional coupons and loyalty cards into the digital age. In fact, 67% said they would be at least somewhat likely to use a bar code-scanning app to scan coupons and save for later use, with 12% being very likely. Sixty-nine percent would be at least somewhat likely to download an app on their smartphone, which allowed them to keep multiple store loyalty cards in their smartphone instead of loose in a wallet or purse.

To answer that demand, CouponCabin’s mobile app has launched two new features. “My Coupon Camera” gives app users the ability to transform paper coupons into digital versions that will be stored in the app and can be easily scanned by cashiers at checkout. Users take a picture of a coupon, scan the bar code and save it to their device as a digital coupon. To ensure better organization, users can add labels, descriptions and expiration dates to their coupons.

With the new “My Loyalty Card feature” users can simply snap a picture of a loyalty card, such as their grocery store member savings card or drug store discount card, and scan the barcode to create a digital card that is stored in the app. All they have to do at checkout is present their device to the cashier for scanning.

In addition, the CouponCabin Newsflash, a constantly updated stream of dozens of coupons and offers per day, is now available on CouponCabin’s mobile app. With Newsflash on their mobile devices, shoppers will never miss a great deal while they’re on the go.
For more information, visit: www.couponcabin.com/mobile/