Shop till Your Fingers Hurt

We are officially in the middle of shopping season. Terms like Black Friday and Cyber Monday are not only part of our vocabulary, but are increasingly how we search for deals. According to a recent MediaPost article, the search term "Cyber Monday" led all google.com search terms, jumping 120% from last year. "Black Friday" rose 60%.

While it is not news that consumers shop more and spend more during this time of the year than any other, what is news is how we are shopping. This year, more than any other in history, consumers shopped differently.

Consider these statistics from this week:

PayPal saw a 511% increase in mobile payment volume on Cyber Monday vs. last year.
17% used a mobile device to visit a retailer's site.
10% used a mobile device to make a purchase.
5% of mobile traffic came from the iPad.

Year to date, online retail purchases are up 16%. All of this points to a healthy start to the holiday buying season and more, illuminates the continued adoption of mobile as a critical shopping tool.

Shoppers are multi-channel creatures of purchase and smart phones are their multi-functional swiss army tool of choice. Shopper behavior has forced retailers to stretch their offerings across channels in order to enhance shopper engagement. Retailers have started to focus on creating a seamless and similar shopping experience regardless of which channel shoppers are engaged.

What does all this mean?

Shopper technology, that is, technology that enhances the shopping experience, has to be a focus for marketers.
Digital Shopper Marketing strategies and insights are increasingly critical for retailers and manufacturers.
Organizational silos that separate online and in-store need to be unified under a renewed focus on shopper experience.
Mobile executions need to consider context. Reapplying traditional or web programs is cutting your effectiveness short.

The brave new world of the integrated, informed consumers is here. How have you adjusted your engagement with them?