In-store Use of Mobile Phones for Point-of-Purchase Product Information Searches in the US

This research investigates how US consumers use mobile phones in-store to acquire product-related information used to assist with purchase decisions. Data were collected in early January 2013 by a telephone survey of a nationally representative sample of adults in the US. (The data collection was sponsored by the Pew Foundation and made available for this research).  Data analyses were performed on the subset of cell phone owners (n=908) with the use of R and its survey package that allow researchers to incorporate the sampling weights to estimate population statistics and standard errors. The independent variables were demographic variables (age, gender, college education, and household income). Results of both univariate and multivariate analyses showed that younger smartphone owners were significantly more likely to use their cell-phones to ask friends or family for product advice, to read product reviews online, and to engage in online price comparison while shopping. Women were significantly more likely than men to use their cell phone to acquire word-of-mouth product information from family and friends, but this gender effect was primarily observed among adults between 18-49 years. Univariate analyses showed that college education and household income were each significantly related to the use of cell-phones in store to acquire purchase-related information.  Multivariate analyses, however, showed that these variables did not significantly predict greater use of cell-phones to acquire purchase-related information. These findings illustrate the importance of multivariate analyses to examine the relationship between demographic and behavioral variables and mobile phone use.  These results also suggest that firms need to adapt to the growing use of mobile phones to assist with in-store purchase decisions. Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE