'Tis the Season for Mobile Shopping Apps

The holiday shopping season has kicked off. Most retailers have already released their Black Friday (News - Alert), Cyber Monday, and other iterations of holiday sales for shoppers to swoon over – and the competition, as usual, is fierce.

The hardest part about attracting buyers at this time of year is beating out the competition and offering the best deal. When you couple that with the technologies now available at consumers’ fingertips, and things are getting even more complicated.

With a mobile device and just a browser, shoppers can look up information about products on the stores shelves, read reviews and even see if a competitor is selling it for a better price before they put it in their shopping carriages.

For the more savvy shoppers, there are also a plethora of mobile shopping apps out there that help find better prices, and even locate further discounts, like coupons to make sure you’re getting the absolute best deal possible.

The mobile device has become a central focus this upcoming shopping season, so it will be interesting to see  just how things play out and just how much the devices are going to help make shoppers lives easier.

New survey results from Wanderful Media’s Find&Save found 40 percent of mobile shoppers they surveyed are using mobile shopping apps and another 20 percent said they would consider using an app for their shopping trips this season. 

One of the areas seeing the greatest interest is using one’s mobile phone and apps to search for the best deals.

According to the survey’s findings, this figure is up 70 percent over just last year. Shoppers are also looking for nearby store locations, and browsing flyers from their phones to make a more informed purchase decision.

The customer has spoken. Now it’s up to retailers to respond and ensure they are reaching out and enticing shoppers via the mobile channel.

More than half of the survey respondents said they would be interested in receiving mobile alerts about any sales or deals.  Also customers said they would be willing to even take pictures of their receipts and send them for rebates. Retailers: Are you taking notes?