Though tablets currently represent only 9 percent of the mobile commerce (m-commerce) marketplace, experts who are carefully watching mobile shopping trends are starting to believe that tablet commerce (t-commerce) may be the future for online retailers.
One of the main reasons that industry experts are starting to look toward the tablet devices as the future leader of mobile commerce is that the consumers themselves are saying that they prefer the tablet shopping experience to that available on their smartphones.
Moreover, while smartphones may be exceptionally popular, the ownership of tablet devices continues to rise. Tablet customers also spend a significantly larger amount of time online than smartphone users, providing retailers with greater opportunities to interact with them.
Among the factors that have been identified as reasons that shopping is becoming more appealing on tablets are the following:
• Portability – consumers can bring their tablets to various locations much more easily than laptop computers. The most common place to use a tablet is in the living room, but they are also used in areas outside the home such as in waiting rooms, airports, and restaurants.
• Screen size – the tablet has a significantly larger screen than the smartphone, making it much easier for users to surf online, click links, and enter the necessary information for completing a transaction. This is especially important as PayPal Express is not yet available to mobile commerce sites.
• Richer content – tablet apps are more innovative, engaging, and unique than those designed for smartphones. Features such as gyroscope, horizontal scroll, page flipping, and audio recognition provide the user with a simple, informative, and enjoyable overall experience.
Tablets, therefore, offer retailers a unique opportunity with significant potential to engage with their customers and provides a considerably improved online shopping experience over traditional internet or smartphones.
