Apps are all the rage these days. No matter what your poison is: gaming, social, media & entertainment, or shopping — there’s a slew of apps for you to now spend your time on. From December 2011 – December 2012, most of these categories have grown by over 200%. With shopping apps experiencing the third-biggest jump at 247%, behind only social and media/entertainment. We live in a consumer focused society where we’re constantly barraged with advertisements for products.
Television, radio, newspapers, & magazines have long been the staple of where businesses focused their advertising habits. But, this new mobile revolution, and the rise of the apps, will bring about the next great shift in how consumers are marketed and reached. The benefit of mobile is that people are always connected.
The growth and popularity of the Internet, and now mobile with smartphones, will not only begin to see a shift in how consumers are reached, but how they spend their time online as well. Consumers spent 6 times as much time on retailer apps in 2012 than the previous year. Focusing much of their time on retailers sites, online marketplaces, and price comparison. While daily deals were super popular in 2011, the decline of Groupon and other daily deal “fad” sites saw their numbers drop.
Research suggests that retailers are doing a better job of creating attractive, easy-to-use apps, but a significant portion of consumers still spend plenty of time on third-party apps. One company who is doing it extremely well is Fab.com. If retailers don’t want to be left behind, they’ll take some notes from them, and other entrepreneurial start-ups.
via: Baynote