Retail brands urged to think mobile first

New study urges brands in China to deliver a seamless branding and retail experience across all platforms as Chinese shoppers are searching for products and services on mobile.The study, jointly conducted by Mindshare China and Millward Brown China, revealed that half of respondents who search using their mobile devices say they visit retailer’s website on mobile. Moreover, they are equally likely have made a purchase on mobile as they have in-person at a store.The study also showed that two-thirds of mobile searchers say that immediate follow-up is triggered after their search.Meanwhile 45% of follow-up actions are directly related to a purchase, whether it is on mobile, PC, offline or a phone call and 40% happen within one hour of the initial mobile search.Additionally, follow-up action tends to be fastest using the mobile device, with 80% coming less than an hour after initial mobile search, compared with PC (62%), phone call (62%) and offline (52%).Ben Condit, digital partner at Mindshare China said Chinese consumers are increasingly engaging on mobile platforms for shopping purposes in stead of using only PCs and laptops.“This increases expectations for brands to deliver a viable shopping experience on all store fronts. From the research, compellingly, we see this to be true across all market levels in China, not just at the top tier,” said Condit.Chris Maier, head of media and digital at Millward Brown Greater China, said: “Chinese consumers can typically be price driven and, consequently, the opportunity to bargain-hunt on e-commerce and m-commerce platforms makes the value proposition intriguing,”He suggested brands to integrate e-commerce and m-commerce activities with their business as consumer sophistication grows towards a more premium value-driven culture.The study was conducted in August and September 2013 and gathered over 25,000 mobile search results across smartphone users in China and their mobile search behaviors, as well as post mobile search actions.[gallery link="file" ids="26607,26598,26599,26600,26601,26602,26603,26605,26606"]