50% of Adults Used Mobiles In-Store While Shopping

More than half of all adult mobile phone owners used their devices for some shopping-related purpose during the last while they were in a store Christmas and holiday shopping season, the Pew Research Center reports.

Some 38 percent of mobile phone owners used their phone to call a friend while they were in a store for advice about a purchase they were considering making. Some 24 percent of mobile device owners used their phone to look up reviews of a product online while they were in a store. The rise of in-store mobile commerce

Some 25 percent of adult mobile owners used their phones to look up the price of a product online while they were in a store, to see if they could get a better price somewhere else. That is the aspect of mobile in-store shopping that seems to worry most brick and mortar retailers.

Taken together, just over half (52 percent) of all adult mobile phone owners used their phone for at least one of these three reasons over the Christmas and holiday shopping season and one third (33 percent) used their phone specifically for online information while inside a physical store, either to check product reviews or get pricing information.