Smartphone adoption is on the rise in Canada and it’s affecting how we shop. This breaking news was brought to you by BrandSpark and its annual Canadian Shopper Study.
BrandSpark surveyed 65,000 Canadians — which, for once, is sample size that actually carries a decent amount of weight — and discovered our shopping habits and routines are shifting thanks to the constant connectivity offered by mobile devices.
Showrooming, the act of looking in-store and then buying online, is nothing new to Canadians. We’ve covered this topic a number of times before. Right now, nearly half of Canadian shoppers are using their smartphone to check prices online before they cash out. BrandSpark notes that 48% of people compare prices from competing retailers while in-store, and 20% of respondents made a different purchasing decision based on the info obtained from their smartphone.
Smartphones will play an even more important role in the shopping experience starting this year. Earlier today, Deloitte announced its annual predictions for 2015 and said that this year is when mobile payments will go mainstream in Canada. What’s more, Apple Pay is expected to debut in Canada sometime in mid-2015, which will go a long way towards normalizing mobile payments.
However, while some things change, others remain mostly the same. Today’s survey also revealed that though 60% of Canadians own a smartphone, 84% still use a pen and paper for their shopping list instead of note-taking apps like Evernote.
[source] CNW [/source]
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