It's obvious that social media and the mobile revolution are disrupting the shopping experience as we know it. At this point, most people rely on these digital tools to give them additional info about the products and services they're thinking of buying. Consumers are simply more knowledgeable about what they are thinking of buying because of the continuing use of mobile and social. This trend can be seen world-wide, especially in select Asian and African countries.
With help from mobile survey experts Jana, we surveyed 3500 respondents on the impact social media and mobile has on the shopping experience from residents in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, India, Indonesia and the Philippines.
Here's what we found when asking respondents from these countries to answer the following three questions:
1. What is the most useful channel for gathering insight on a product?
We found that a majority of respondents in the selected countries claim social media is the most useful channel for gathering insight on a product. The second and third most useful source for conducting product research is on a company's website and thru reading articles online or in the newspaper. It's likely that consumers are more interested in feedback about products and services from their friends, family and connections on social media then they are from the info companies provide about their products.
2. Does Social Media impact your mobile shopping experience?
The data highlights that in almost every country selected for this survey, a majority of respondents believe that social media directly impacts the mobile shopping experience. The only exception was the Philippines, where only 38.81 percent said social media had an impact, 11.29 percent said social media had no impact and 49.90 percent said they don't even shop on mobile. The Philippines is still a developing market when it comes to mobile commerce, which could be a major factor in why a majority of respondents said they don't shop using their phones.
3. How often do you research a product on your phone before buying it?
Lastly, a majority of respondents from each country, except the Philippines, said that they research products on their phone every time before they buy something. In the Philippines, a majority of respondents, 30.50 percent to be exact, rarely use their phone for product research. This data from the Philippines helps support the findings uncovered in the previous question, that far less consumers use mobile phones for shopping and/or have mobile phones at all.
Now take a look at this data visualized as an infographic:
About the Data
The data for this infographic and article was gathered by Jana, a mobile technology company that can send mobile airtime to 3.48 billion mobile phone users in 102 countries for taking surveys or participating in targeted offers.
Full disclosure: Jana gathered this data specifically for the purposes of this article.