Tablets, Smartphones Battle For Home Shopping Supremacy

By Pete Rizzo, Editor (@pete_rizzo_)

Released on August 12, Nielsen’s “A Mobile Shopper’s Journey: From The Couch To The Store (And Back Again)” revealed that tablets are the most popular device in every home shopping category.

Tablet owners were more likely than their smartphone-using counterparts to use a store locator, check prices and research items at home, often by double-digit margins.

However, the following PYMNTS.com infographic shows that the majority of smartphone owners use their devices when shopping at home, and suggests marketers and merchants may be unwise to focus solely on tablet devices when targeting consumers.

Pew Research Center has revealed that tablet owners are more affluent, but less common. Only 10 percent of tablet owners earn less than $30,000, compared to the 22 percent of this demographic that owns a smartphone. Smartphones now outnumber tablets nearly seven to one, IDC reported in March. 

By clicking on our interactive graph, you can see how in a number of buying categories, such as writing a review of a purchase, smartphones are a close second to tablets.

“Even though smartphones and tablets are made to be mobile, some mobile shoppers never leave the couch while they’re shopping, as 95 percent of tablet shoppers and 72 percent of smartphone shoppers who make a purchase with their device do so at home,” Nielsen wrote in its report summary.

Tablets may be winning the war, but how do these devices compare with smartphones battle by battle in each category? PYMNTS.com lets you explore in this informative infographic:

http://infogr.am/Which-Device-Rules-Home-Shopping/