And that’s how perfect and seamless their user experience is: you don’t even notice that you’ve switched to Google shopping.
A while ago, I blogged about how consumers don’t feel retailers are giving them a good mobile shopping experience. I think it’s ridiculous how long it has taken retailers to recognize the fact they probably should be spending more into developing a good shopping app. Google’s taking steps to rectify this before the holiday seasons!
Why? The reasons are simple, and backed by research:
- 61% of holiday shoppers will start researching their purchases on their phones first
- Smarphones’ share of online purchases has gone up by 64%
- 30% of all shopping purchases happen on our mobile phones
- People spend about 88% of their time on smartphones using apps. Google wants them to convert this to browser time
These are all compelling numbers and Google decided to step up their game. When you search for items now, you can go to “shopping” and get a seamless browsing experience. It’s also evident that they know what consumers want when shopping. You can now check on inventory levels for an item sold at retailers near you. This is also backed by evidence found by Google: 1 in 4 shoppers don’t visit retail stores because they’re not sure if what they need is there.
Now that I’m getting in the mind-frame of Christmas shopping, this is definitely a useful change to my mobile Chrome browser. I can compare reviews, and compare retailers all on the same browser instead of downloading multiple apps from different sellers. And more often than not, time is of the essence— especially when it comes to last minute shopping. Thank you Google!
