The results of research recently released by Chadwick Martin Bailey (CMB) have determined that nearly 50 percent of smartphone owners who have devices capable of scanning QR codes have already done so at least once, and that among them, almost one in every five had followed up by making a purchase.
These positive numbers are encouraging for marketers who have been including the barcodes in their mobile strategies, and for those who have been planning to do so in the near future. The research was performed by both CMB and iModerate Research Technologies in order to create the Consumer Pulse study report, which not only identified the ways in which the codes were already being used, but also pointed out areas in which their popularity could be improved.
The results did show that though only 21 percent of the participants in the study were familiar with the actual term “QR code”, this didn’t mean that they were unaware of the technology. That same research also showed that 81 percent of the respondents had seen the barcodes before. According to the report, this indicates that there is still a need to explain the technology to consumers, rather than assuming that they know what to do with it.
What should also be considered useful to marketers is that among those respondents who had actually used the codes, only 41 percent felt that the information that they received from the website, app, or other result of the code’s use was useful to them. What was promising was that at least 70 percent of the respondents considered the QR codes to be simple to use, regardless of the relevance of the result.
