Shopping on office desktops peak during office hours; mobile usage grows: study

In India, online purchases on office desktops peak during work hours while mobile devices are the preferred medium to add to the online cart during non-office hours, as per a report by research firm Criteo on consumers’ online shopping habits.

The report titled, ‘The State of Cross-Device Commerce – India’ says, about 51 percent shoppers use two or more devices for shopping online, highlighting a clear need for retailers to deepen their understanding of cross-device consumer behaviour trends.

It highlighted that mobile is showing a higher transaction rate as a shopping device with 24 percent prefering smartphones as the first device for shopping.

Out of total cross device transactions, about 39 percent shoppers have desktops as first devices for browsing but final devices for purchase are smartphones and only 14 percent shoppers have smartphones as first devices for browsing but final devices for purchase are desktops.

Cross device buyers are evenly represented across the three devices, smartphones (55 percent), tablets (56 percent) and desktops (50 percent), the report showed, suggesting that the data can also be used by retailers to align marketing strategies to maximize the ROI (return on investment).

The report added that the conversion rates using cross devices are up to 2x (2 times) higher than a per-device view.

Dushyant Sapre, Commercial Director, Criteo said, “India’s online shoppers have seen a paradigm shift in the last decade. The fierce competition of online players, increase of smartphones usage and internet penetration have resulted in an extended customer online journey across devices.

“Adoption of a cross-device measurement strategy is a critical imperative for all retailers.  Marketers not only need to adopt cross-device measurement to ensure proper attribution, but also to ensure their spend is optimised for the channels delivering the highest performance. Retailers who are able to deliver a seamless and personalised customer experience across devices will stand out from the crowd.”

Additionally, as customers continue to use multiple devices for purchases, marketers need to consider how much cross-device shopping may result in digital advertising waste if they do not have accurate and scalable measurement.