Tablets: Ultimate Buying Machines?

Tablet owners more likely to buy, and spend more

[bw100]

Retailers have found an interesting characteristic of consumers who browse their websites using tablets: They're much more likely to pull the trigger on purchases than other online shoppers.

That discovery is making retailers focus on tablets ahead of the all-important holiday season ...

Tablets still account for only a small percentage of overall e-commerce, but they are punching above their weight. While the conversion rate—orders divided by total visits—is 3% for shoppers using a traditional PC, it is 4% or 5% for shoppers using tablets, says Sucharita Mulpuru, an analyst at Forrester Research.

Many retailers also report that tablet users place bigger orders—in some cases adding 10% to 20% more to the tab—on average than shoppers using PCs or smartphones.

[online.wsj.com ]

[lorax]

Interesting find. I can see this - ease of access (portable device) combined with an impulsive buyer = a sale.

[wheel]

Perhaps it's not the tablet. Could be that purchasing stupid crap online is just a common trait of these people. You can tell because they've bought all manner of stuff online, like.....tablets.

But if they're prepared to identify themselves as a group by using tablets, we should be prepared to service them accordingly.

[jecasc]

I think the bad usability of tablets compared to desktop computers lets customers buy at the first shop where they get a halfway decent result and price.

When I shop with my desktop I can open ten links to different shops in different tabs in about 5 seconds and navigate between them easily. I can type in the same search request in different search engines or different websites very easily or copy and paste search terms with my mouse and put them in differnt search boxes.

Opening a new account and typing in billing and shipping address is also not a big deal with a keyboard on a desktop computer.

With a tablet people are probably more likely to simply use a shop they already know and where they already have an account and are less likely to shop around and compare prices IMHO.

[Rlilly]

I have a hard time believing that the "same demographics" who use a PC and a tablet, happen to buy more when using a tablet.

More than likely, folks who have tablets generally will have a higher income / education and are in the position to make quicker decisions.

[J_RaD]

Tablets still account for only a small percentage of overall e-commerce

they also account for a very small percentage of devices...... so why is everyone tripping over themselves to go to the lowest common denominator?

seems like everyone is drinking the kool-aid, but now that tablets have been labeled "the ultimate buying machine" people are going to see even more ads telling them to buy buy buy buy. useful device? na just helps clean your bank account out faster.

More than likely, folks who have tablets generally will have a higher income / education

really? cause they fell for marketing hype in the 1st place right? i'd say that clearly labels these types as "impulse" buyers

[wheel]

I wouldn't bet the farm on tablets. I see them as an interim device. I've got a tablet and a phone in the last year, and the tablet's still nice - but I can easily see where my phone will replace the tablet in the future.

[incrediBILL]

Ah, the smell of negative nay-sayers in the morning making fun of the golden goose... amazing.

Some have some really misguided ideas about tablets and the people using them. Most of the people I know using tablets have lots of disposable income, tend to be pretty smart, and often have really high-end jobs, like VPs and CEOs even.

Consider the tablet makes access easier than lugging a computer around, even a netbook which is more unwieldy to use than a tablet in many situations. When you make access easier it facilitates more sales, possibly impulse buying, which is a goof thing for online merchants.

We order a lot of stuff online and the volume of those orders is probably because we have his and her computers next to our living room chairs at all times. You remember you need something, order it, done. If I had to get up and go to my desktop I'd probably forget and end up picking it up at the store instead, eventually.

Easy access does make a difference.

[J_RaD]

Most of the people I know using tablets have lots of disposable income, tend to be pretty smart, and often have really high-end jobs, like VPs and CEOs even.

so?
how many broke 20 somthings do you see carrying around ipads? lots.

Consider the tablet makes access easier than lugging a computer around, even a netbook which is more unwieldy to use than a tablet in many situations.

in what situation? a tablet doesn't fit in your pocket, so you've got to carry it around...... in what situation would you say AH tablet so lucky i have it...vs i'll just use my smartphone, or i'll just use my computer.

its just like this in between device that doesn't really have much of a home.

A Wall Street firm has apparently reported that the Samsung Galaxy Tab is being returned at a rate of 15%, which is rather high.

most people buy a tab cause they see the the ads saying "you gota have it, buy buy buy" they go buy it.... use it....then wonder what the heck they are really supposed to do with it and take it back.


nobody will come out and say it but it won't do what their windows computers will do.

flip it around to the ipad and its only a 2% return rate...but thats because no apple kool-aid drinker would ever THINK of returning a product steve jobs told them to buy! never its the greatest

[Harry]

Ok, I'm not an Apple fan, but I'm not blind on tablets (of course I have one). It's not about the Kool-Aid effect. The tablet, once you have one really replaces a lot of the stuff computers are used for. For example, email is much more easier and pleasant on a tablet than on a PC. Quick browsing is also much more effective when sites are optimized for tablets and mobile browser.

Tablets are not a fad and will not be replaced by phones. They are their own things, and the more I use the tablet, as a power user, the more I wish I could do more with the tablet than a regular computer.

Ignore tablet users and make fun of them at your own risk.

For my Websites, first having a smartphone taught me to clean up my act. Now the tablet is teaching me to make sites with good user experience in mind.

I never thought I'd be a pro tablet guy, I used to be like some of the commenters above. Seen the light. Tabs are the way of the future, and I'm not an Apple fan. All tablets be they droids or other platforms have the same effect.

[dpd1]

I would vote for the 'more expendable income' scenario... These are people that buy toys and spend money on stuff more. I love computers. But I use a pad and paper for my "mobile computing". Personally, I think the whole 'mobile' thing is highly overrated. I have a... gulp... paper calender. Yes, I know... Heresy. There's people that think pulling out a pen is a sin. But I seriously doubt pads have a higher purchasing percentage in sites, purely because they're using a pad.

[incrediBILL]

in what situation? a tablet doesn't fit in your pocket, so you've got to carry it around...... in what situation would you say AH tablet so lucky i have it...vs i'll just use my smartphone, or i'll just use my computer.

its just like this in between device that doesn't really have much of a home.

It doesn't have to fit in my pocket, neither does a netbook, silly argument

Tablets and netbooks conveniently sitting in the house in handy to grab places, sometimes I take them with me, smart phone always in the pocket I see people using them in bars and restaurants, they do get carried around.

Ig you don't want my money I'll gladly give it to Amazon or someone else that caters to us, people with cash to spend and new toys to purchase with. Heck, Amazon just rekeased the new Kindle Fire, there will soon probably millions of them out there shopping away and not not being used by the broke 20 somethings, another silly argument using non-customers as examples as broke 20 somethings also have desktops and smart phones, so what?

Get over it, tablets are coming on strong and it's not that big of a deal to make your website work on one, scalable sites have been around for yrars, nothing new

[edited by: incrediBILL at 8:59 pm (utc) on Sep 28, 2011]

[Leosghost]

opsted frmo your blatet Bill ? :)

[incrediBILL]

huh?

[wheel]

Ig you don't want my money

scalable sites have been around for yrars,

He asked if you were posting from your tablet. lol.

[incrediBILL]

nope - didn't have my reading glasses handy and I don't catch all the mistakes when I don't

[Leosghost]

me neither..and oftentimes even when I do ;-)

jesting apart..I agree with you ..I've been building "scalable" for just those reasons..;-)

[incrediBILL]

The most amusing thing is tablets have as much or more resolution than many of the screen sizes from back in '96 when I first got on the 'net, people designed for them for years, and now suddenly it's a problem?

[grelmar]

For right now, I suspect the increased % of sales from Tablet customers is mostly the early adopter effect. People who have tablets tend to be in the early adopter category - whether it's because they have the disposable income, because they're the type that always has to have the latest and greatest regardless of the effect on their pocketbook, or they're in a field where having the latest computing technology is advantageous.

Any one of those three things describes an A+ consumer, that a savvy retailer would cater to.

I get a chuckle out of the naysayers, partly because I was one when it came to tablets for a fair while. I just couldn't see the point. Then I ended up with a pile of bonus money and decided what the heck and picked up an Android tablet, fully expecting it to annoy me. It didn't. It has replaced my need for a laptop. I've had a half dozen or so laptops over the past decade (usually paid for by an employer or as a part of a contract), and I always considered them nothing more than a necessary evil - too small and underpowered to be actually useful, to bulky and heavy to be truly portable.

Now, I take my tablet with me most places. Small enough and light enough for portability. Large enough viewing space to accomplish light tasks that I would do on a laptop (I got one with a 10" screen). Nice for watching videos or reading a book while I'm killing time, and unlike a laptop, I can watch SEVERAL movies before draining the battery (important if you find yourself stuck at an airport).

Not only has it replaced my need for a laptop, I'm actually thinking of getting a "dumb" phone with long battery life - so long as it has 4g and BlueTooth for tethering. I hardly use my smartphone at all anymore for checking email on the go or other such basic web surfing. I would rather have a phone that I don't have to charge daily that serves merely as a phone and a connection point to the web for my tablet. It's FAR better than any smartphone could ever be at that kind of tasking.

Anyway, back to the point at hand - the buyer effect won't last for long. Maybe another year or so until they become more mainstream, and then it will likely level out to similar levels as other devices. But to ignore the form factor when you're designing your site is silliness. It would be the same type of silliness as designing a site that only works for Internet Exploder.

So, if you're smart about design, you'll simply add in common browser tablet clients to your usability tests. And if you're even smarter about design, you've been using liquid layouts and common standards since the turn of the millennium, and your site will look presentable (if maybe not perfect - at least presentable and usable) on Tablets, Smartphones, and any Browser/OS combo your visitors are likely to be using.

I've got a half dozen sites on the go. I haven't had to redesign one of them, not one, for smartphones or tablets, because I took the time to build them right the first time, and they all have accommodated the new form factors just fine.

Not bragging about that really, because if that ISN'T how you design your sites, kindly log off the web, you're cluttering it with crap.

[HuskyPup]

Have I got, and had, totally the wrong type of tablet pcs?

I certainly couldn't do any design work/coding on one, I certainly wouldn't even attempt shopping with one, I simply find them horrible to use with a netbook smashing them into the next universe.

Ok, the current one with a 10.1" screen is fine for playing angry birds and it's good for streaming my tv programmes whilst sitting on the patio drinking a beer and reading through the bbc news site but as a serious work tool...absolutely nowhere in it...then again knowing me I'm probably doing everything ass about face.

However that also goes for four other people in this office, they can't understand the hype either.

[bakedjake]

Post hoc ergo propter hoc

I suspect tablet ownership is the easiest way for Google Analytics to measure affluence.

That said, my next e-commerce site has an iPhone/iPad specific interface for when users browse with those devices. I think it's important enough to test, and no, I don't think the interface should be the same as a traditional mouse/keyboard interface.

they can't understand the hype either

I don't understand the hype around Justin Bieber either, but I can't pretend it's not a multi-billion dollar a year industry.

I don't like the current crop of touch screen interfaces for e-mail or anything beyond *very* basic web browsing. I find them maddening. But lots of people love them, and since we're in the business of selling lots of things to lots of people, it warrants a good look.

[wheel]

I certainly couldn't do any design work/coding on one

Tablets aren't for work. They're for, as you noted, recreation, browsing, research. Something comes up on TV,grab the tablet, surf the net.

Which makes me ponder. People find me when they're at home and doing research. Possibly tablet users are a bigger component than I thought. My layout isn't bad on a tablet, maybe I should be cleaning it up a bit though.

[bakedjake]

doing research

Yes. Exactly my thought as well.

[mfishy]

Let me get this straight. People who buy expensive things spend more money? This would lead me to believe that people who drive new BMW's spend more than those with 98 Malibus. How can this be so?

[J_RaD]

I'm actually thinking of getting a "dumb" phone with long battery life - so long as it has 4g and BlueTooth for tethering.

have you seen how B-I-G the smartphones are getting nowadays? sheesh what are they up to now 4.5? i ditched my smartphone and got the smallest dumbphone i could find just cause i was tired of having this big a-- thing in my pocket that didn't even fit anymore.

and im not getting a nerd holster for my phone, no way.

cell phones were getting smaller and smaller, now its turned back around to bigger and bigger.

[incrediBILL]

I love the 4.5 screen, makes them almost big enough to do some work without dragging a tablet around ;)

[tangor]

I just figure in the "boredom" factor wherein those with fondleslabs on commuter trains (eg) have nothing to do with their "down time" than "spend".

Meanwhile, I'd like to see the same reports as to smartphones (which I suspect to be larger by an order of magnitude).

Otherwise, there's a growing and certain on-line presence for "shopping" and we best get behind it.

I'm currently looking into bottled water and hamburgers delivered by Quidditch-qualified broom riding imps. (grins). Question is how to apply Adsense to these kind of direct sales sites without incurring the Wrath of Google? :)

[grelmar]

I certainly couldn't do any design work/coding on one, I certainly wouldn't even attempt shopping with one, I simply find them horrible to use with a netbook smashing them into the next universe.

I've had a couple of netbooks, and they're equally useless for doing any kind of "real" work - at least for me - same as laptops. If I actually need to get work done, aside from telnetting into a server to do a couple of quick edits with VI or VIM (the first person to mention EMACS gets hurt), then I'm going to sit down at a real computer, with a real monitor and keyboard and mouse.

Which is the point I was trying to make. For "portable computing" I just want something for quick text editing, maybe be able to read/slight edit a spreadsheet or word document, catch up on some emails, surf the web, etc - and my tablet handles all that just fine. No heavy lifting, but a bit of light work and entertainment, which is all I could get out of a laptop anyway.

cell phones were getting smaller and smaller, now its turned back around to bigger and bigger.

Couldn't agree more. For the longest time cel phones progression was about a smaller phone with a longer battery life. Now the next gen of "smart" phones are looking at coming out with the quad-core Kal El processor [crave.cnet.co.uk], with 4 - 5 inch screens, and they'll probably just eat their batteries.

To heck with that. Give me a phone that dials out, rings, has good voice quality, a long battery life, and acts as a portable hotspot for my tablet, should I be in the mood to bring that along with me. And make it SMALL, please, as in, smaller than a moto-Razr (remember those?)

[J_RaD]

I love the 4.5 screen, makes them almost big enough to do some work without dragging a tablet around ;)

you just like ANYTHING that is NOT a computer :-P

[HuskyPup]

And make it SMALL, please, as in, smaller than a moto-Razr (remember those?)

Remember them? I'm still using them, one Razr and two Krzr K1s! They do what I need, one of them I have to charge every three days now but otherwise they're all still flying.