Digital CPG Blog

We talked earlier this week a bit about what users want from their mobile apps. Today, we report that most apps aren’t getting the job done, so says the New York Times:

Even as phones get more versatile and sophisticated, many retailers’ mobile sites and apps make it difficult to shop. It can be hard to examine items on a small screen, and the pages are often slow to load. Perhaps most frustrating, the process of entering information on a mobile keyboard requires either surgical precision or very tiny fingers.

As a result, retailers report that only about 2 percent of their sales are coming from mobile devices, a number well below the expectations of many e-commerce analysts.

Shoppers told Tealeaf that mobile shopping was more frustrating than sitting in traffic or visiting the D.M.V., which helps explain why, despite all the interest, people are not yet spending much when shopping on their phones.

Users do expect and want to shop on their phones, but the experience is more soul-crushing than the DMV. Clearly, there is a large opportunity for CPG manus and others to make a big impact in this market. Part of it will be having a mobile payment system that doesn’t make you put in your info every time, and part will be having the right experience. Imagine if you did mobile shopping right! That would certainly be a huge differentiator.