Smartphones and Shopping

Chief Marketer dissects a recent study of smartphones for retail.   The overall conclusion is they are in heavy use for information gathering.   This study includes all uses of smartphones, whether it is in-store or not,  Useful but not surprising statistical results by age and gender.  The most surprising thing I found was in the following para, which suggests that the use of barcode scanning App is much more common than have have personally observed.  I have my doubts, will look to the original study report:.  If so this changes the interactive  landscape of in-store considerably.

" ... Asked what apps they were most likely to open when using their smartphones to shop, respondents most often cited scanner apps for 2D barcodes or QR codes (44%), followed by discount apps such as Groupon or LivingSocial (38%). And customer review apps such as the one from Consumer Reports (31%). Branded store apps were name by 26% of those polled, and 22% pointed to product comparison apps. Only 13% said they were likely to open geo-location apps such as Foursquare, Gowalla or Shopkick ... "