On yesterday’s “Hispanic Consumers Buy into Digital for Local Shopping” webinar, I joined BIA/Kelsey’s chief economist, Dr. Mark Fratrik, and our head of business development Steve Passwaiter, to examine what the new Consumer Commerce Monitor survey (CCM) reveals about Hispanic consumers’ local shopping trends, social media and mobile usage.

Hispanic consumers report using mobile devices when shopping for local products and services more frequently than non-Hispanic consumers, with 52.5% of Hispanic consumers reported using a tablet daily for local shopping, and 42.5% reported using a smartphone.

When Hispanics shop locally they use social media more than non-Hispanic consumers; and when shopping they interact more with social media, 46% vs. 41% (in the last 6 months). Hispanic consumers’ rank Facebook, YouTube and Twitter as the most used social media sites. When they use social sites for local shopping, Hispanic consumers rank Facebook as their top source followed by YouTube and Google+. This is indicative of the social network landscape, with Facebook being the 800 pound gorilla in the room.

When using social media for local shopping, Hispanic consumers index higher than non-Hispanics on all social media networks, except Facebook, with 61% of Hispanics and 67% of non-Hispanics (see chart below) reporting they use Facebook for local shopping. Facebook again far outpacing all of the social networks in the space. This is a clear indicator that Facebook must be a part of a business social engagement strategy.

Key takeaways from the webinar included:

— Mobile and social advertising is vital to establishing a relationship with Hispanic consumers as they heavily use these channels to compare, browse and purchase local products and services.

— Social campaigns are tremendously effective for local businesses to drive in store purchases.

— Mobile campaigns must include social and loyalty elements as Hispanics use devices to shop locally and are more loyal to local businesses than the non-Hispanics.

— TV ads with a digital component (mobile and/or social) absolutely help influence purchases more than TV ads alone.

Webinar recording and downloadable slide deck for “Hispanic Consumers Buy into Digital for Local Shopping” are available here.

Interested in learning more about Consumer Commerce Monitor? Check out BIA/Kelsey’s CCM page.

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We have all gotten used to looking at our phones and seeing several notifications on our home screens. From text messages, to emails, to sports updates, we are able to receive notifications for almost anything. More than ever, local businesses have apps that provide push notifications to consumers to encourage traffic.

— According to BIA/Kelsey’s Consumer Commerce Monitor ™, 35% of consumers who use smartphones when shopping locally regularly use apps to assist with their shopping experience. Most are not just using one shopping app either. On average consumers have 3.5 different apps they regularly use when shopping locally.

Push notifications have contributed substantially to app use in relation to local shopping due in part to the increase in engagement that happens once a consumer joins. According to the “Good Push Index” released by Urban Airship, on average mobile application users who have opted in to push messages have a long term retention rate that is 92% higher than those who have opted out of the messages. Not only is app retention substantially increased, but app engagement is also increased. Opt-in app users open retail apps 12.5 times per month on average compared with only 9.0 opens for those who opted not to receive push messages.

For marketers, the challenge is converting these consumers to buyers. In the local shopping space, according to BIA/Kelsey data, promotion and sales for local shoppers close the loop. Coupon reminders are a popular use of push notifications for retail apps.

According to BIA/Kelsey’s Consumer Commerce Monitor, 43% of local purchases made by smartphone users within the last six months were made through promotions or sales, such as discount deals, “daily deals”, coupons, or similar types of discount offers. Thirty-six percent of respondents to RadiumOne’s survey of women and their use of coupons on their mobile devices felt that push notifications of mobile coupon offers were useful.

Geo-targeting these coupon push notifications is important to drive purchases from local shoppers, especially smartphone users who are using their phones for local shopping in a variety of locations. Most importantly this includes 68% of smartphone users using their phones in the store, according to BIA/Kelsey data. We can also see that smartphone users are often on their phones when they are out and about. With 68% of smartphone users using their smartphones in public and 60% using them in transit, geo-targeting would prove to be highly effective in encouraging nearby consumers to pay more attention to the local businesses around them.

While the future of mobile push notifications is uncertain, BIA/Kelsey’s Mike Boland gives us his prediction in his blog post, BIA/Kelsey Mobile Outlook: 5 Predictions and a Wild Card.

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Square began offering credit-card readers in 2009, which allow merchants to accept payments on mobile devices. Square originally targeted small businesses, but it now also sells a point-of-sale terminal for use in retail stores and has tools to help merchants sell online. The company charges a fee of 2.75 percent per transaction, along with free software.

Square competes with companies like EBay Inc.’s PayPal, Inuit, iTransact, and Shopkeep POS in the payments software space. In BIA/Kelsey’s Local Commerce Monitor™ (LCM) survey on advertising and marketing of small and medium businesses (SMBs), we asked SMBs about their usage of a mobile credit card swipe. 40% of respondents currently use one and an additional 16% said they are likely to adopt one for use within the next 12 months.

According to our Consumer Commerce Monitor (CCM) survey, consumers report using mobile phones and tablets to shop locally. We asked consumers how they find, engage and transact with local-serving businesses, including where they use their mobile devices. Consumers using smartphones report being far more likely to use their devices for local shopping while out of their homes, while consumers using tablets are far more likely to use their devices at home.

(Local Shopping means 25 mi radius from respondent’s primary residence)

When it comes to mobile payments via credit swipe, 42% of consumers say they have done so. The heaviest users are the 35-44 age group (45.4%) and Hispanics (48.9%).

35-44 yr olds local shopping characteristics:

• 64% perform their local shopping in store
• 28% perform their local shopping online
• 68% hold an associate’s degree or higher
• 50% household income ranges from $50,000 to $124,999

Hispanic local shopping characteristics:

• 57% perform their local shopping in store
• 31% perform their local shopping online
• 58% have an associate’s degree or higher
• 41% household income ranges from $50,000 to $ 124,999.

SMBs realize that more of their customers are going mobile and they are optimizing their presence to be more mobile as well. According to our LCM survey, almost 40% of SMBs reported that mobile marketing is a high priority in the next 12 months.

Check out BIA/Kelsey’s LCM page for more information.

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Shopping through mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets is re-shaping how purchases are made during one of the biggest consumer spending weekends of the year. According to the National Retail Federation, more than 141 million Americans shopped over the holiday weekend and they spent $407 on average. This results in revenues of approximately $57.4 billion. A recent report done by IBM on this past weekend’s shopping frenzy and Cyber Monday sales suggests a strong move to mobile in purchasing habits this year.

According to the IBM holiday report, mobile traffic grew to nearly 32 percent of all online traffic, an increase of 45 percent over Black Friday 2012 weekend. Mobile sales were also strong, reaching 17 percent of total online sales, an increase of nearly 55 percent year-over-year. In BIA/Kelsey’s Consumer Commerce Monitor™ (CCM) data survey, 26 percent of consumers surveyed said that they participate in local shopping via online. We expect this figure to have increased on par to what IBM data shows. Our findings also show that 33 percent and 40 percent of consumers use their tablet and smartphone for local shopping at least once a day, respectively. Both BIA/Kelsey and IBM data show strong growth for mobile devices in purchasing behaviors among shoppers.

The IBM report suggests that smartphones tended to be more of a browsing device, while more purchases were made on the tablet devices. Smartphones drove 20 percent of all online traffic on Black Friday compared to tablets at 12 percent, making it the browsing device of choice. Tablets drove 12 percent of all online sales, twice that of smartphones, which accounted for 6 percent of all online sales. Similarly, CCM shows that 81 percent of consumers use their tablets to purchase locally compared to 63 percent who use their smartphone.

Mobile is key as far as accessing local shopping information goes. The most common method for accessing local shopping information on a smartphone or tablet is searches, according to 66 percent of CCM survey respondents.

Of course, all businesses consider the context of their products and pricing, but to be competitive and cut through the competition for Black Friday weekend and Cyber Monday, the data seems to show that businesses should consider being more mobile-friendly.

More information on CCM is available on the BIA/Kelsey website.

We’ll be covering this and other themes in great depth at our upcoming Leading in Local conference, December 10-12 in San Francisco. Be there and join the conversation.

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