Mobile: The Lazy Enabler

I was catching up on my ad industry gossip the other morning and came across this article on MediaPost: Half of Shoppers at Top Retailers are Mobile. comScore conducted a wonderful little study involving 10 of the top retailers in the world, comparing mobile traffic (tablets+phones) vs desktop & laptop traffic:

The shocking thing was not that mobile usage has grown; we expect that by now. It was the % of people overall for many of these 10 retailers that see traffic from users ONLY via mobile device. These users never see the website in it’s full, 1080p, double HD, mega curved screen glory.

It takes the mobile device from a conversion assisting device into the full fledged A-Z conversion outfit. After careful review of the types of sites that have the most mobile only traffic, I guesstimate three types of mobile only use cases typically exist:

1) Made for Mobilers: The product is made for mobile and best used/purchased in that environment, thus the large ratio of mobile only users (i.e. Apple’s app store, or Ticketmaster’s sales + ticket scan platform)

2) The Shopping Assistants: users research products both on the go (think moms in the car at a Target) or in the store (i.e. Kohl’s, Best Buy). Also known as “showrooming.”

3) The Lazy Enablers: a user sits on the couch, sees something they want on the TV, and reaches for the phone to complete a purchase instead of getting up to go to their desktop (Amazon, QVC)

There’s certainly some hybrid action for all of these user types and websites. But, these are 3 situations that continue to pop up. Any other phonosapiens I might be missing?