How mobile is transforming retail

A report from The Economist Intelligence Unit
How mobile is transforming retail
Bricks, clicks, tweets and
texts across the omnichannel
shopping mall

© The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 20151
Bricks, clicks, tweets and texts across the omnichannel shopping mall
Preface 2
Introduction 3
The third shopfront: The ‘fun factor’ trumps lower prices as a key mobile shopping driver 4
Whither the online pure play as mobile shoppers opt for local retailers with two shopfronts? 5
Regional differences 6
Seamlessly moving across channels—from research to returns 7
Case study: Foyles—Taking cues from the brick-and-mortar environment to ensure a seamless
virtual experience
7
Basic in-store mobile drivers for consumers: Convenience leads 9
Store associates and mobility: Tightening the omnichannel experience, now and later 9
The showrooming conundrum is no longer one 11
The shift to more sophisticated mobile services 11
Quality of omnichannel experience matters 12
Case study: Rocket leapfrogs into African omnichannel 12
Key constraints on the path from online to omnichannel 12
Privacy concerns waning 13
Case study: MercadoLibre: Addressing the limitations of slow connections in Latin America through
lower-speed services
14
The future of omnichannel shopping: Watch mobile wallets 14
Conclusion 16
Appendix: survey results 17
Contents

Preface
How mobile is transforming retail is one of several
papers in a series that probes how mobile
technologies are transforming business. Take-up of
mobile technology impacts every part of consumer
journey. The pace of change is dramatic in both
developed and emerging markets. In the throes of
disruption, perceiving the shape of things to come
and anticipating future consumer expectations and
actions can be difficult. Retail merits a particular
focus for the way it touches consumers worldwide
in their daily lives.
The findings and views in this report do not
necessarily represent the views of the sponsor. The
author was Marcus Leroux; Carolyn Whelan edited
the report. We would like to thank all of the
executives who participated on the record and
anonymously.
Interviewees
l Lisa Feng, a retail executive in China
l Scott Galloway, professor of marketing and
digital branding, NYU Stern School of Business
l Sion Hamilton, chief operating officer, Foyles
l Jérémy Hodara, co-chief executive Africa
Internet Group, Rocket Internet
l Richard McKenzie, consumer analyst, China
l Daniel Rabinovich, chief technology officer,
MercadoLibre
l Mark Ritzmann, head of mCommerce, Vodafone
InMarchof2015,TheEconomistIntelligenceUnit
(EIU),foraresearchprogrammesponsoredbySAP,
polled519consumersacross39countriesonhowthey
engagewithretailersthroughmobiledevices.The
surveywascirculatedtoaglobalgroupofuserswith
anear-equalshareofrespondentsfromfourregions:
theAsia-Pacific(23%)region,Europe(23%),Latin
America(22%)andNorthAmerica(23%).
The balance (9%) of respondents hail from
Africa, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. As for
age ranges, the millennials cohort (those 18-35
years) makes up more than half (51%) of the
sample. Moreover, nearly all 5-10-year age bands
represent between 13% and 18% of those polled.
Gender parity was also maintained, with a near-
equal share of men (54%) and women (46%).
Who took the survey?

In a few short years, shopping using a handheld
device on a commute to work or over lunch has
shifted from a far-fetched possibility to a firmly
embedded part of consumers’ lives. In many Asian
markets, mobile purchases now comprise more
than half of online shopping; in the UK, the
proportion of online spending originating from
mobile phones has risen from less than 1% to 37%
in four years. The mobile revolution has arrived—
and it will continue to profoundly reshape the
global industry.
Mobile technology is infiltrating every step of
the purchasing process. From spotting a must-have
fashion item on social media to price-checking
while in a physical store through to managing
deliveries or returns, the mobile-enabled customer
is pushing retailers into new, unfamiliar terrain.
Today, retailers are increasingly offering more-
advanced capabilities, such as allowing customers
to check out using their mobile devices and
offering responsive discounts to customers in
stores via their geolocated mobile phones. Even
consumers who have been reluctant to enter the
m-commerce age express a willingness to engage
with some advanced capabilities, which suggests
the return on investment for innovative store
groups is more immediate than expected and that
failing to respond to these powerful and
unstoppable forces could hasten loss of market
share or result in missed selling opportunities.
Against this backdrop, how regions and
generations use and leverage mobile technologies
for retail purposes, the ways they plan to do so in
the future and the obstacles that limit mobile
shopping vary widely. This report will highlight
some of these key differences and analyse their
implications for retailers that seek to secure a
sizeable share of the purses of mobile-empowered
consumers—and those who do not.
Notably, the survey data show that traditional
desktop shopping is still a force to be reckoned
with, with 69% of consumers using desktops to
research products and services—a figure on par
with smartphone use for this purpose. Similarly,
41% of respondents are using their desktops to
make purchases, some 3 percentage points above
those using smartphones for these activities.
These figures, however, belie the huge
divergence between a smartphone-dependent
generation of millennials and older consumers.
This suggests a mobile time bomb for retailers that
have yet to wake up to its significance.
In a few years, a generation whose shopping
habits have matured alongside the evolution of
mobile technology will become the mainstay of
retail spending in developed economies. If retailers
lack a compelling presence on the smartphones
and social networks that these maturing
millennials frequent, they may lose their place in
the mainstream. Furthermore, slow-to-respond
retailers may miss out not only on mobile sales, but
also traditional brick-and-mortar sales enabled by
mobile technology.
In parallel, there appears to be serious
Introduction

misalignment between retailers and the consumers
they serve. Only 20% of Internet Retailer’s top 500
mobile retailers have a responsive website—or one
that adjusts automatically to the screen size of a
particular device—be it a smartphone. tablet or
desktop. Research from Barclays in the UK also
found that 70% of retailers did not have a mobile-
enabled website or application in place.
Much as shopkeepers like to say “retail is detail”
when talking about store standards and service in
brick-and-mortar retail, consumers have a list of
bugbears that prevent them from relying more on
their mobile phones. Some of these factors are
external constraints, such as the quality of
networks, but the winning retailers are those that
mitigate and plan for the worst.
In an age where data security breaches have
become commonplace to the point of being
mundane, concerns over privacy are never far from
consumers’ minds. The data suggest that while
consumers do not give in to knee-jerk reactions
against, for example, sharing information, retailers
must ask permission. To raise the stakes still
further, the mobile-savvy mainstream consumers
of tomorrow are the most likely to take to social
media to sing the praises of retailers that deliver a
positive experience—and air their grievances about
those that do not.
This report seeks to illuminate current strategies
and suggest next steps for retailers navigating this
new mobile world.
The third shopfront: The ‘fun factor’
trumps lower prices as a key mobile
shopping driver
Mobile shopping is fundamentally changing the
retail landscape just as Internet shopping did two
decades ago. Its arrival then ushered in the era of
desktop shopping—opening up a “second
shopfront” for retailers and exposing them to fierce
new competitors, such as Amazon and eBay, which
continue to be formidable forces.
But the smartphone has since put a shopping
mall of incalculable size into a staggering nearly
2bn pockets and handbags globally. The addition
of this “third shop front” is a critical part of the
aspiration of omnichannel shopping to offer a
seamless journey across all three channels—from
the physical store, to desktop computers, to mobile
devices including smartphones and tablets. This
connected and fluid approach is qualitatively
different from that in traditional e-commerce and,
accordingly, has profound implications for the first
two shopfronts.
In the mature markets of developed economies,
mobile-enabled commerce (m-commerce) is
invariably the brightest spot in a low- or no-
growth market. In parallel, its take-up is galloping
along in developing countries because eager
consumers do not have to wait for stores to be
built or need expensive computers to research or
purchase the goods and services they seek. In
many parts of the world, the third shopfront is
opening before the first two.
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
When purchasing products or services, how often do you use a smartphone?
(% respondents)
Source: Economist Intelligence Unit survey, 2015
Daily Weekly Monthly Rarely or never
Under 35 35+

Mobile technology also brings near-perfect
real-time price transparency to the market,
empowering consumer research as never before.
The first wave of e-commerce is credited with
hitting profit margins as cost-conscious shoppers
searched for lower prices. This fostered a view in
some quarters that online retail was intrinsically
low on gross margins—and low on creativity.
But EIU survey data show that with the rise of
mobile shopping the fun factor is back in modern
retailing. Some 51% of respondents say that
mobile has made shopping more fun, versus just
15% who say the opposite. Moreover, nearly half
(47%) believe using mobile devices for shopping
makes them more loyal to certain stores, well
above the 17% who claim it makes them more
disloyal.
So the prize is potentially huge. Some even
suggest that the smartphone will serve as catalyst
for the end of the Internet pure play.
Whither the online pure play as
mobile shoppers opt for local
retailers with two shopfronts?
Because about 60% of smartphone searches relate
in some way to the user’s location, according to
Scott Galloway, professor of brand strategy and
digital marketing at the NYU Stern School of
Business, consumers may increasingly lean towards
more specialised online retailers that have a
physical store in their orbit over an online pure-
play option. This preference for local purchasing
options, particularly among millennials, is also
perhaps pushing established online-only retailers
to establish physical stores.
“Mobile phones, as suggested by the name, are
used when you’re mobile. When you’re on the go
there’s a very real chance that you will be around
one of these flexible warehouses that we call
stores,” explains Mr Galloway. “We believe that the
future looks more like Williams-Sonoma, Sephora
or Macy’s than it does Net-a-Porter or Amazon.”
Amazon has been expanding its network of
delivery lockers to provide more of a local presence
and convenience to its customers; Mr Galloway
thinks the purchase of a chain of petrol stations
would be a neat solution.
Today frequent mobile shoppers show a
predilection for entertainment, fashion and
How has mobile shopping changed your feelings or behaviour when it comes to shopping?
More fun 1 2 3 4 Less fun 5
Shopping is 26 25 33 12 3
More
loyalty 1 2 3 4
Less
loyalty 5
My loyalty to certain retailers 19 28 35 13 4
Which of the following purchases have you made
using a mobile device within the past six months?
Select all that apply.
(% respondents)
Clothing, apparel or jewellery
Books, music, videos or movies
Electronics
Household goods
Food or groceries
Event tickets (eg, sports games, concerts)
Travel
Personal services (eg, automotive repairs, laundry services, tutoring)
53
53
48
38
32
32
23
13

electronics. Within these categories, online-only
businesses still hold a strong share of their mobile
shoppers’ spending (see charts below).
Regional differences
Smartphone users exhibit some striking regional
differences when it comes to their mobile shopping
preferences, according to the survey. In many
categories European and North American
respondents lag their peers in other regions in the
frequency of their mobile shopping, save for items
where online shopping is well-entrenched and
where online has an established market share, such
as in books, music, videos and movies or clothing.
Respondents in Latin America, by contrast,
purchased event tickets and electronics from their
mobile devices significantly more often than did
their global peers. Finally, those polled in Africa,
the Middle East and Eastern Europe are twice as
likely to have used their mobile devices for
purchases in the nascent personal services category
as their peers who make this claim in the US.
Local retailer National/global
chain retailer
Online-only
retailer
Other
Food or groceries
Household goods
Electronics
Travel
What types of retailers have you made these purchases from using a mobile device?
(% respondents)
47 31 22 1
17 42 39 2
21 38 39 2
13 44 42 2
15 32 50 3
21 39 36 3
39 37 21 3
12 43 40 5
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Which of the following purchases have you made using a mobile device within the past six months?
(% respondents)
Food or
groceries
Clothing, apparel
or jewellery
Household
goods
Electronics Books, music,
videos or movies
Event tickets
(eg, sports
games, concerts)
Personal services
(eg, automotive
repairs, laundry
services, tutoring)
Travel
Asia-Pacific Latin America North America Europe

Seamlessly moving across
channels—from research to returns
This blending of virtual and physical—and a
growing consumer preference for retailers that
offer both options—underscores the importance of
a seamless transition across storefronts.
This is a distinct departure from the desperate
efforts of major retailers just three years ago to
maintain a firewall around their brick-and-mortar
stores, to keep fierce price competition in an online
arm from cannibalizing sales in a physical store.
Their websites would have separate price files and,
occasionally, separate brand identities, even
different products or services. Not anymore. The
pervasiveness of mobile—consumers can use it
anywhere, anytime and at any point while
shopping, from research to purchase, to delivery
and returns —has left no place to hide.
A compelling finding in the EIU survey is that
consumers are pushing the “online-to-offline”
(o2o) behaviour that is already characterising the
mobile age. This o2o acronym applies to online
activities that dovetail with the physical world—for
instance, checking a local store’s inventory before
reserving a product for store purchase or picking
up an online purchase item at a local store. This
o2o behaviour is spreading beyond early adopters.
Most consumers surveyed by the EIU—about
60%—are already using their smartphones to
If physical bookshops have a spiritual home it is on London’s
Charing Cross Road, where, until recently, independent sellers
offered everything from antique rarities to hardback best-
sellers.
But one bookseller, Foyles, is seizing the mobile opportunity
to fill a niche in a permanently connected world.
“Jeff Bezos started Amazon because books were easy to put
on a computer: They have barcodes and they are easy to post,”
says Sion Hamilton, Foyles’ chief operating officer. “It’s been a
challenging market.”
Those challenges prompted Foyles, now a six-store mini-
chain, to ask consumers, the publishing industry and high-tech
giants such as Google about the future of book-selling before a
planned move of its flagship store on Charing Cross Road two
years ago.
“There was real anxiety in the retail market at the time, you
could sense it. People were asking: ‘What’s the future for the
High Street?’” he recounts.
Yet this exercise confirmed a sustained appreciation among
consumers for the hands-on experience of perusing books in a
brick-and-mortar store. However, Foyles wanted the store
experience to be digitally enabled as well.
The outcome is Ariadne, a web-based application that gives
consumers access to Foyles’ inventory of 200,000 or so titles
and guides them to the correct bay. Foyles’ flagship store now
has about four miles of shelving—and nothing drives book
buyers towards Amazon faster than befuddled shop assistants
unable to locate a title that a computer tells them is in stock.
Ariadne—named after the mythological figure who guided
Theseus through the Labyrinth—is found on the landing page
that shoppers hit when they log into the staff’s WiFi. Thus,
Ariadne does not rely on consumers downloading and accepting
updates for an application they use only occasionally.
The tool is still in its beta phase and Foyles is exploring ways
to make it richer and more appealing by, for example, using
Ariadne to copy and post versions of the physical store’s
themed tables. By so doing, Foyles hopes to capture the
environment book lovers seek in the physical store. Overlaying
authors’ own maps also allows shoppers to navigate the store
through the eyes of a favourite writer.
More immediately, Foyles found Ariadne to be immensely
useful for staff.
“When it was busy at Christmas and I was helping on the
floor, I used [Ariadne] to help consumers. This means you don’t
have to break off a conversation with a customer to check if a
book is in stock. You can [virtually] walk them to the book. In
terms of conversion, that makes a difference.”
So, when Foyles opens its next store, in Britain’s second city
of Birmingham, staff will be using Ariadne to help consumers,
and to clinch the sale.
case study: Foyles—Taking cues from the brick-and-mortar environment to
ensure a seamless virtual experience

compare prices and products, while 47% are using
these devices to transact. About the same
percentage use their mobile phones to track orders.
Perhaps more important, a significant proportion of
those who do not yet use their mobile device for
researching or transacting would like to do so.
This is good news for retailers. According to
other research by Deloitte, in-store shoppers who
used a digital device before and during a shopping
trip had a conversion rate that was 42 percentage
points higher at 84% (or subsequently purchased
items from the same retailer from their devices),
while loyalty also improved significantly. Moreover,
nearly double the proportion of digital researchers
said they would definitely return to the store versus
those who were not digitally influenced.
This process varies slightly across storefronts,
however. Desktop users can tap product
aggregators—such as Google Products, Shopzilla or
Shopstyle—to find the best prices. They can flit
between different tabs to compare retailers’
offerings. Mobile users, meanwhile, are more likely
to be on the go and will either need to find a
product locally or may want to fill downtime by
seeking out inspiration from a favourite retailer.
So, mobile shopping can potentially return some
pricing power to retailers. To take advantage,
however, many will need to overhaul their systems
to give the customer a real-time view of inventory
at local stores.
This shift towards o2o behaviour suggests that
mobile services with a local presence are more
important than ever. Alibaba, the dominant
e-commerce force in China, has placed a bet on
consumers ordering local services—a restaurant
booking, for example—through their mobiles. It
has embarked on an ambitious joint venture, called
“Koubei”, with Ant Financial Services Group. “By
developing a broad spectrum of consumer offerings
… Alibaba is able to fulfil our vision of becoming
central to the everyday lives of our consumers,” an
Alibaba spokesman explained.
Alibaba, dubbed the Chinese Amazon, has 289m
active users of its mobile apps in its home market,
which at the last count was up 77% year-on-year,
with 51% of sales now coming via mobile.
Last year Alibaba took an 18% stake in Weibo,
China’s Twitter equivalent. Driving this purchase, a
company spokesman said, was increasing “user
acquisition and engagement on our marketplaces,
as well as gain[ing] insights into our and Weibo’s
users for improved service offerings and targeted
marketing”.
Through Weibo, Alibaba can seek out customers
of a specific demographic who have interacted with
a particular feed—perhaps those who had
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
When researching or purchasing products and services on your mobile device, which of the basic
following activities do you conduct now?
If you are not conducting these, would you be interested in the future?
(% respondents)
View catalogues, products or information
View and compare products or services
Pay for purchases
Track purchase shipments
Maintain loyalty-card information and track rewards points
Request product support or assistance
Request, ship and track returns
Save credit-card information in apps to speed purchases
Scan QR codes
Now In the future

expressed interest in a particular event or brand.
While Alibaba is by far number one in direct
online sales, it has a lower market share in o2o,
which will become increasingly important as
Chinese consumers grow more and more
comfortable with booking takeaways or cinema
tickets from their mobiles.
Basic in-store mobile drivers for
consumers: Convenience leads
For the in-store shopping experience for
consumers, convenience is a major driver, followed
by cost savings. Among those polled who do not
use advanced services provided by retailers in
physical stores, they singled out bypassing a
register or kiosk by paying through mobile devices,
receiving personalised recommendations or offers,
and using virtual fitting rooms as most appealing.
And among age groups, millennials express the
most interest in these services or applications.
Store associates and mobility:
Tightening the omnichannel
experience, now and later
Just as intriguing for retailers are the mobile
services consumers would like to see shop staff
offer. Among services that appeal most to
respondents, 59% say it is “very desirable” and
29% say it is “somewhat desirable” for retailers to
use mobile devices to check prices or stock
availability and to reserve out-of-stock items.
Some 76% say mobile-equipped staff taking
payments would be somewhat or very desirable. For
retailers considering the return on investing in
mobile devices for shop floor staff, these figures
are well worth considering.
Retailers are increasingly ensuring that all three
shopfronts—physical store, online store and
mobile- or application-based store—speak to one
another. This involves granting consumers access
to services (for example, finding one’s way around
a store or locating a store associate) on their
mobile devices well beyond peering into inventory.
But this practice also raises questions about how
staff are equipped, trained or incentivised.
Attributing sales from mobile devices to local
stores may help address this issue.
One retailer following this route is hardware
store chain Home Depot. It credits online and
mobile sales to local stores to limit resistance to
guiding consumers online. The company reckons
that roughly 40% of its online sales “leverage a
physical store”—because, for example, the item or
service was collected there, shipped from there or
ordered there. In fact, some 10% of the do-it-
yourself retailer’s online orders are carried out in
stores—a practice boosted by the roll-out earlier
this year of the second generation of Home Depot’s
“First Phone” device.
The First Phone is a mobile phone that acts as a
walkie-talkie, telephone and point-of-sale device
for store associates. It enables access to Home
Very
desirable
Somewhat
desirable
Minimally
desirable
Not at all
desirable
Know when I enter the store
Offer personalised recommendations and offers
Take payment without going to a register or kiosk
Demonstrate virtual fitting rooms or virtual design centres
Collect my contact information for personalised offers, recommendations and/or follow-up calls
When visiting a physical store and browsing products or services, is it desirable when salespeople
use mobile devices for the following?
Select one in each row.
(% respondents)
27 29 22 22
34 38 18 9
42 34 15 9
30 35 22 13
27 33 21 19

Depot’s applications, locates products and allows
consumers to purchase items and check out—which
proved helpful over the peak spring period.
This device also helps consumers expand or
narrow their range of options. The million or so
stock-keeping units (SKUs) on Home Depot’s
website—including items shipped directly from
vendors—dwarfs average Home Depot physical
store SKUs of about 35,000. “In a Home Depot
location we might have 300 faucets for you to look
at. Now you can say, ‘I’ve got 10,000 more in my
other stores’ and you can show them pictures,
videos and reviews”, says Kevin Hofmann,
president of Home Depot’s online operations.
Home Depot’s application has been downloaded
10m times, but Mr Hofmann says that the mobile
website will always be vitally important because
most customers visit home improvement stores
infrequently.
The app’s most basic features, such as its item
locator, are the most widely used. But it also has
more advanced features, including a function that
allows customers to take a picture of their room and
visualise what it would look like painted in certain
colours. Another application, now in the beta stage,
uses image recognition so customers can search for
Very
desirable
Somewhat
desirable
Minimally
desirable
Not at all
desirable
Provide product information, comparisons, ratings or alternates
Check prices
Check inventory for product availability
Locate and reserve out-of-stock items
Schedule personal-shopper appointments
Schedule shipment, delivery, installation
When visiting a physical store and browsing products or services, is it desirable when salespeople use
mobile devices for the following basic tasks?
(% respondents)
46 36 13 4
57 32 8 3
59 29 9 3
50 34 13 4
27 32 28 12
42 38 16 4
When in a physical store, what technology features would prevent you from making the
purchase elsewhere using your mobile device?
Select the top three.
(% respondents)
Faster shopping because store personnel can process payments with mobile devices
A more seamless experience across the retailer’s website, mobile services and store
Personalised store experience based on my history, profile and/or location
More proactive store associates who effectively use mobile devices to improve customer service
Offering of more product or service options
Digital tools that help me make my purchase decisions (ie, offered in the store or via mobile)
Quicker response to locating and offering out-of-stock items
38
36
36
34
33
26
22

similar items using a picture they have taken, for
example, of an item in a friend’s home.
The showrooming conundrum is no
longer one
Salespeople have an opportunity to crimp
“showrooming”—consumers using stores as
showrooms to research items that they later
purchased online—by improving the quality or
frequency of these services or applications, with a
focus on speedier or more convenient purchases or
customisation. (Earlier US concerns of
showrooming reportedly prompted some US stores
to block WiFi signals and remove product codes
from displays.)
When respondents were asked what activities by
salespeople might prevent them from showrooming,
they pointed most often to processing payments
from mobile devices to save time (38%), a more
seamless experience across a retailer’s website,
mobile services and physical store (36%), and a
more personalised store experience based on their
history, profile or location.
The shift to more sophisticated
mobile services
But as we peer into the future, survey responses
suggest that mobile users are ready to, at a
minimum, experiment with a variety of more
sophisticated retail services from their mobile
devices in all aspects of mobile shopping—from
trying on goods in virtual dressing rooms to
purchasing products from a mobile-empowered
store associate. This suggests a missed opportunity
for retailers without these advanced capabilities.
For instance, some 37% of survey respondents
have used mobile devices to request product
samples, but 32% anticipate doing so in the near
future. Roughly 30% of those polled believe they
will soon begin trying on clothes in virtual fitting
rooms, an ability that will make shopping for
apparel less fraught for mobile consumers and—for
retailers—more profitable because of the likely
reduction in costly returns.
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
When researching or purchasing products or services on your mobile device, which of the
following advanced activities do you conduct now?
If you are not conducting these, would you be interested in the future?
(% respondents)
Request product samples
Receive and/or redeem personalised offers,
promotions, specials or coupons
Manage shopping lists through the
retailer’s app or mobile site
Participate in product design and testing
Optimise shopping budgets
(ie, through a money- or budget-management app)
Try on products in virtual design centres or fitting rooms (ie, using virtual
or augmented reality to see how apparel fits, or envision physical spaces)
Request and track in-home services
(eg, installations, repairs)
Use delivery services to make and receive purchases from retailers
(eg, Seamless, Instacart, delivery.com)
Manage shopping lists through a third-party app
or service to shop with several retailers
Now In the future

It would be all too easy to assume that m-commerce is nascent
in Africa, since 20 of the world’s poorest countries in terms of
spending power are in sub-Saharan Africa. To the contrary,
Africans, starved of conventional organised retail options, are
mobile shopping with an alacrity that rivals that among the
gadget-loving Asia-Pacific.
Witness Rocket Internet, a German online retailer that
invests in emerging markets. Rocket has taken a commanding
lead in Nigeria and already has about 100 websites across 30
African countries.
“It’s not a question of if—it’s already happened”, says
Jérémy Hodara, co-chief executive of Rocket’s Africa Internet
Group, referring to an environment in which users first gravitate
towards mobile shopping options, then to a physical store.
“In Africa, the complexity to secure land, complexity of
building infrastructure and the cost of doing it mean that the
traditional store isn’t developing fast. If you go to Lagos, there
are two or three malls and 20 million consumers.
“E-commerce is the first experience of organised retail for a
lot of consumers.”
And for a majority of consumers, the store arrives on the
small screen in their pocket in the absence of a big screen at
home or work.
Jumia, Rocket’s Amazon equivalent, is by far the biggest
online retailer in Nigeria, Africa’s biggest market. With about
two-thirds of the online market, Jumia makes more than half its
sales from mobile devices as middle-class Africans leapfrog the
desktop era of Internet shopping and reach immediately for the
smartphone—ordinarily an affordable, Chinese-made device
that runs on Google’s Android operating system.
“There’s been a very significant increase in the smartphone
market with Chinese brands entering Africa with very positive
prices, making it affordable for the middle class. If you go to
Lagos, your taxi driver will have a smartphone. It’s not fantasy,
it’s happening,” says Mr Hodara.
As a result, Jumia has a mobile-first mentality: Its developers
and technology team devote at least half their energy to
mobile; Jumia’s commercial team introduced mobile-only
promotions to pull consumers onto their platforms.
“We don’t want to just be in line with the market, but to
proactively shape the way people use their devices. This is
important because mobile is changing. The rules of the game
are changing. People have limited space on their phone. You’re
fighting not only for a share of their purse or a share of their
attention but for a share of their screen,” says Mr Hodara.
The lack of infrastructure has also nudged Jumia towards
handling its own logistics. One of the most-cited obstacles to
e-commerce in Africa is the speed of delivery. “You need to
ensure a flawless customer service and it doesn’t come through
delegating logistics to someone else. You have to deliver it,
control it. We have built our own last-mile logistics network,”
Mr Hodara adds.
This also gives Jumia the flexibility to offer different
payment options—as in many developing markets, cash
payments on delivery are popular.
case study: Rocket leapfrogs into African omnichannel
Quality of omnichannel experience
matters
But as the reliance on mobile phones grows, the
consumer becomes less forgiving of poorly
functioning mobile websites and applications. As
part of its own drive towards seamlessness,
Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, for example,
has integrated its e-commerce and m-commerce
sites into a common, in-house platform called
“Pangaea”. In 2013, the company’s sites ran on
different platforms, making it difficult for Walmart
to transfer best practices between markets. For
mobile, the investment appears to be working. In
May, the company said that mobile traffic in the
first quarter was more than double that of the same
period last year; conversions were also up.
Key constraints on the path from
online to omnichannel
Despite the enormous opportunity mobile shopping
offers, the EIU’s findings suggest many internal and
external constraints still weigh on its take-up
among consumers. A chief obstacle today is the
stubborn popularity of shopping from a desktop.

Strongly
concerned
Moderately
concerned
Minimally
concerned
Not at all
concerned
Personalising products or services
Personalising the display of products or services
Sending targeted marketing messages
Sending targeted promotions or coupons
Sharing my personal information with business partners
How concerned are you about retailers collecting and using your personal information
(eg, name, location, purchases and habits) for the following purposes?
(% respondents)
29 38 26 8
22 42 27 8
27 38 27 8
24 33 30 13
50 31 12 7
Indeed, EIU findings show that desktop
computer use for online shopping matches that of
the smartphone for this activity in its proportion of
consumers, with some 69% of respondents using
this medium daily to research products. The
desktop also still enjoys a far higher rate of
converting traffic into sales.
A variety of factors hold back the growth of
mobile shopping. Infrequent users of smartphones
for shopping most cite small screens (74%),
awkward navigation (42%) and slow Internet
speeds (29%) as primary obstacles to greater use
of mobile shopping. All of these could be mitigated
by better application or website design, according
to retail executives.
A cautionary note: Dismissing the persistence of
the desktop as a formidable force may be a pitfall
for unwary retailers. More than two-thirds of
respondents use their smartphone daily to research
purchases; among millennials, however, this figure
rises to 81%. A similar gap exists between the two
groups’ propensity to buy goods using their
smartphones rather than a desktop computer.
To raise the stakes yet further, millennials are by
far the most likely age group to review their
experiences of a product or transaction through
social media—both positive and negative,
potentially impacting more negatively retailers
who eschew mobile. The implication is clear: As
millennials become the critical mass of consumers
in the coming decade, they will be brutally
unforgiving of laggards who fail to offer goods or
services through mobile. Today’s profits are
flattered by residual desktop use that is set to
decline markedly. Ignore the omnichannel
consumer at your peril.
Privacy concerns waning
Surprisingly, when it comes to mobile shopping,
the importance of security to consumers is fading.
High-profile hacks and breaches of data security do
not appear to translate into a knee-jerk reaction
that will harm the growth of m-commerce or curtail
its potential applications. While the sharing of
customer information with third parties is a serious
concern for half of respondents, the majority of
those customers would be appeased by the retailer
offering an “opt-in” system. The advice for retailers
that want to share their customers’ personal
information is straightforward: Ask first. Some
resistance is also apparent to granting specific
applications access to certain functions on the
smartphone, particularly its camera and photos
(62% were not at all willing to allow access) and
the microphone (60%).

Latin American respondents who rarely use mobile devices for
researching or making purchases most blame this on the slow
speed of connections. They are twice as likely to complain of
this problem as their North American, Asian or European
counterparts.
MercadoLibre, Latin America’s top e-commerce and
m-commerce player, is addressing these limitations through its
mobile strategy and services. The company’s mobile business
has grown spectacularly fast, outperforming the company’s
wider business (which has grown about 25% a year for the last
three years), according to Daniel Rabinovich, MercadoLibre’s
chief technology officer.
Ironically, that rapid success is based in part on embracing
failure.
“If you live here, you design your applications for failure all
the time,” says Mr Rabinovich. This is particularly true for the
popular Android applications, which typically use slow
connections. This results in lots more offline features and more
caching—and absorbing extra costs.
“WhatsApp is a great application, at least in part because it
works. We try to do the same, we don’t like fancy animation, we
don’t like fancy pictures. Our current application is being
redesigned and the new version is going to be ten times
simpler. But to achieve simplicity is very hard. All the
complexity should be under the hood,” Mr Rabinovich says.
At the MercadoLibre development lab a very physical
reminder underscores the need to cater to the weakest link. “We
created a wall of cell phones from the cheapest to the most
expensive, all [of] different sizes, and we’re all forced to test
our applications there,” Mr Rabinovich says. “A lot of big
organisations have released applications that look great on
PowerPoint but in the heat of use, the experience is completely
different. We’re forced to think of that in Latin America because
of the lower quality of devices.”
case study: MercadoLibre: Addressing the limitations of slow connections
in Latin America through lower-speed services
The future of omnichannel
shopping: Watch mobile wallets
Although the rate of mobility growth suggests that
m-commerce will soon be the primary channel for
online retail, its trajectory offers few clues on the
future shape of e-commerce. How will the battle for
control of mobile payments play out? Will location-
based special offers take off? Will personalised
promotions and vouchering migrate to mobile? Will
applications or dynamic mobile websites be the
primary vehicle of delivery?
For a sense of mobile’s shopping trajectory, look
to the evolution of mobile wallets, which, because
of improved security safeguards and ease of use,
may entice many would-be mobile shoppers to join
the fray. Apple Pay and Google Wallet are two
well-known competitors in an increasingly crowded
field that now includes retailers (MercadoLibre and
Alibaba both have their own versions), a
consortium of retailers (Walmart et al.’s CurrentC),
network operators and banks.
Mark Ritzmann, head of m-commerce at
Vodafone, Europe’s biggest mobile operator,
reckons it is too soon to call the mobile wallet
winner. But a clear enabling technology is
emerging: Near Field Communication (NFC), which
many handset makers now prefer over incumbent
technologies such as low-energy Bluetooth (NFC is
less energy intensive than Bluetooth, does not
require customers to manually set up connections
and is more targeted). Yet Mr Ritzmann is sanguine
about which type of mobile wallet wins out in the
end. “In the UK and Spain, we’re beyond critical
mass and in other markets we’re getting there”, he
says. “The more accepted [mobile wallets are] by
consumers, the more it enables this market. I guess
there will be a point in time when we will have
strong competition, but right now there’s a lot to
share.”
Each of the different models has its own
drawback, which Mr Ritzmann suggests will ensure
some market diversity. Google Wallet, for instance,
runs off the cloud and therefore cannot be used

with a low battery. Venmo, owned by eBay’s PayPal,
is the dark horse in the space. It enables peer-to-
peer transfers via mobile, thus, for example,
allowing friends to split restaurant bills. In Latin
America, MercadoLibre has recently introduced its
own equivalent. In China, Alibaba has floated the
possibility of using facial recognition for its mobile
payment system. Alibaba is also at the forefront of
harnessing social media, according to Richard
McKenzie, a Hong Kong-based specialist in
consumer behaviour.
“Adoption of social media is driving shoppers
onto the phone and driving screen sizes larger,”
says Mr McKenzie. “A lot of shopping behaviour
seems to look at what is popular on social media
and then use that to link to an e-commerce site.
The catchphrase I use is ‘the mobile phone is
becoming the remote control of life.’”
Lisa Feng, a retail executive in China, also
highlights the importance of social media, but
underscores specific cultural factors. “China has
never had a culture of privacy, so people talk very
openly about purchases.”
More broadly, as the case study on Rocket
shows, retailers should not expect mobile retail in
the developing world to chart the same trajectory
as it has in developed countries. As Daniel
Rabinovich of MercadoLibre puts it: “In many
emerging countries, the mobile phone is the first
computer people have.”
Mr Ritzmann says Vodafone’s mobile wallet
strives to enable users to store everything normally
kept in a conventional wallet. This may usher in a
new era of personalised, targeted offers that would
enable more engaging offers on a more fluid basis
than the ongoing mail-shots of tailored vouchers
that have been the norm in many markets for
several decades. Similarly, if NFC enters the
mainstream, personalised, location-based offers
will be within reach.
Already some 37% of mobile shoppers use their
devices to receive or redeem personalised offers.
Adding NFC will integrate this powerful tool into
the physical store as a missing piece of the
omnichannel puzzle. Yet, some retailers, some
shoppers and perhaps some regulators may find
this uncomfortably close to price discrimination—
possibly crossing privacy boundaries.

Mobile technology impacts everything it touches.
The spectacular rise of mobile shopping in
developed and developing economies alike in just
three years bears testament to its transformative
power. In developing economies, the growth of 3G
technology and affordable Chinese-made
smartphones have short-circuited the orderly path
to retail maturity.
What can retailers that seek to future-proof their
businesses learn from mobile shopping’s high-
speed trajectory?
Retailers need to wake up to the importance of
having a thoughtful omnichannel strategy,
based not just on the device used but also the
place of research or purchase (home, store, on
the go) to anticipate and address consumer
needs and wants. Desktop shopping is surprisingly
sticky due to its sustained popularity among older
consumers. But shopping and research from
desktop computers are far more rare among
tech-savvy millennials and those in the Asia-Pacific
region. Legacy desktop traffic is propping up the
performance of some retailers—it will not last
forever.
The mobile is the remote control for life. Online-
to-offline (o2o) is fast becoming the norm.
Customers will use their mobile devices in stores
irrespective of retailers’ attempts at control or
store preferences. Retailers may want to push
mobile usage in a direction that adds value to
consumers’ visits. Showrooming is inevitable, but
the sharpest brick-and-mortar retailers will find
ways to limit showrooming to their own channel.
Less-developed markets offer lessons. Emerging
markets are not copying mature markets. They are
innovating in ways that offer lessons for mature
markets.
Those with physical stores should think mobile.
Consumers want to see store associates armed with
the same mobile capabilities consumers have. This
will enhance the customer experience and boost
conversion.
Mobile consumers are unforgiving. Retailers
should design applications and mobile sites to
pre-empt and mitigate failure.
As smartphone penetration creeps towards 100%,
the window of opportunity to carve out a popular
mobile shipping niche is narrowing. For retailers
weighing investment decisions, the temptation can
be to retrench in tough economies. But time is
running short to stake a claim on the mobile
shopping frontier.
Conclusion

Appendix:
survey
results
Percentages may not
add to 100% owing to
rounding or the ability
of respondents to
choose multiple
responses.
What kind of mobile device have you used in the last six months to browse or purchase products or services?
Please select all that apply.
(% respondents)
Smartphone (eg, iPhone, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry, LG, HTC, Xiaomi, Huawei)
Tablet computer (eg, iPad, Microsoft Surface, Samsung Galaxy Tab)
Feature phone (ie, a basic phone for calls and texts; may have simple games and Internet capabilities)
I do not use a mobile device
92
74
31
0
Feature phone
Smartphone
Tablet
Personal computer (eg desktop PC, laptop)
When researching products and services, how often do you use the following device(s)?
Check one in each row.
(% respondents)
16 9 4 71
69 16 8 8
38 27 8 27
69 22 5 4

Why don’t you research products or services using your mobile device more often?
Select the top three reasons.
(% respondents)
The screen is too small
Navigating information is awkward
The Internet is not fast enough on my device(s)
Saving research results is difficult
Sharing information across multiple mobile devices is difficult
Sharing information with friends and family is difficult
Other
63
39
31
24
15
8
10
Feature phone
Smartphone
Tablet
Personal computer (eg desktop PC, laptop)
When purchasing products or services, how often do you use the following device(s)?
Check one in each row.
(% respondents)
11 8 6 76
38 18 16 29
26 22 16 36
41 28 24 7
Why don’t you purchase products or services using your mobile device more often?
Select the top three reasons.
(% respondents)
I prefer to use a personal computer
I am concerned about the privacy of my data
I am concerned about the security of my data
It is too difficult to use the retailer’s mobile website to make a purchase
It takes too long to make a purchase
It is too difficult to use the retailer’s app to make a purchase
I prefer to visit a physical store
It feels too impulsive to make purchases on a mobile device
Other
51
32
31
28
21
17
14
8
5

Which of the following activities do you perform most often when researching products or services
on your mobile device?
(% respondents)
Check reviews on third-party sites (eg, Yelp, Google Maps, Consumer Reports, blogs)
Check reviews on retailer apps or sites (eg, Amazon)
Research products or services using non-retailer services (eg, Google search, product manufacturers)
Visit deal sites for coupons (eg, RetailMeNot, coupons.com)
Use retailer apps or sites to browse products and services
Use retailer apps or sites to check for weekly promotions
Receive and use retailer emails to learn about promotions
Research products or services on social media services (eg, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter)
48
44
37
27
25
24
21
18
Which of the following purchases have you made using a mobile device within the past six months?
(% respondents)
Electronics
Household goods
Food or groceries
Travel
53
53
48
38
32
32
23
13

Local retailer National/global
chain retailer
Online-only
retailer
Other
Food or groceries
Household goods
Electronics
Travel
What types of retailers have you made these purchases from using a mobile device?
(% respondents)
47 31 22 1
17 42 39 2
21 38 39 2
13 44 42 2
15 32 50 3
21 39 36 3
39 37 21 3
12 43 40 5
When researching or purchasing products and services on your mobile device, which of the basic
following activities do you conduct now?
(% respondents)
Pay for purchases
Scan QR codes (ie, black-and-white images that mobile-device cameras can read to obtain online information)
61
59
47
47
26
25
21
19
15

In your answer to the previous question, you indicated that you are currently not engaging in the following
basic activities when researching or purchasing products or services on your mobile device.
Are you interested in doing any of these in the future?
(% respondents)
Pay for purchases
Scan QR codes (ie, black-and-white images that mobile-device cameras can read to obtain online information)
52
45
39
39
35
34
31
26
22
When researching or purchasing products or services on your mobile device, which of the following
advanced activities do you conduct now?
(% respondents)
Receive and/or redeem personalised offers, promotions, specials or coupons
Manage shopping lists through the retailer’s app or mobile site
Optimise shopping budgets (ie, through a money- or budget-management app)
Try on products in virtual design centres or fitting rooms (ie, using virtual or augmented reality to see how apparel fits, or envision physical spaces)
Request and track in-home services (eg, installations, repairs)
Use delivery services to make and receive purchases from retailers (eg, Seamless, Instacart, delivery.com)
Manage shopping lists through a third-party app or service to shop with several retailers
37
37
30
24
24
22
21
20
16

In your answer to the previous question, you indicated that you are currently not doing the following advanced
activities when researching or purchasing products and services on your mobile device.
(% respondents)
Try on products in virtual design centres or fitting rooms (ie, using virtual or augmented reality to see how apparel fits, or envision physical spaces)
Optimise shopping budgets (ie, through a money- or budget-management app)
Manage shopping lists through the retailer’s app or mobile site
Manage shopping lists through a third-party app or service to shop with several retailers
Receive and/or redeem personalised offers, promotions, specials or coupons
Use delivery services to make and receive purchases from retailers (eg, Seamless, Instacart, delivery.com)
Request and track in-home services (eg, installations, repairs)
51
38
34
31
27
27
27
26
25
How has mobile shopping changed your feelings or behaviour when it comes to shopping?
Make a selection.
(% respondents)
Shopping is
1 More fun
2
3
4
5 Less fun
Time spent on shopping
1 More time
2
3
4
5 Less time
Per item, I spend
1 More money
2
3
4
5 Less money
My loyalty to certain retailers
1 More loyalty
2
3
4
5 Less loyalty
Per month, I spend
1 More money
2
3
4
5 Less money
26
25
33
12
3
18
18
35
20
9
9
15
43
20
13
19
28
35
13
4
11
20
44
18
7

When visiting a physical store and browsing for products and services, which of the following basic activities
do you conduct on your mobile device now?
(% respondents)
View the retailer’s catalogues, products or information
Search for coupons, offers and promotions
View and compare products and services from other retailers
Receive recommendations for alternate products
Scan barcodes or QR codes to get product information
Communicate with friends for advice on buying decisions
Locate out-of-stock items in other stores and locations from the same retailer
Locate out-of-stock items from other retailers
Hold or order out-of-stock items
Schedule personal-shopping appointments with preferred sales associates
47
46
44
28
25
24
23
19
18
8
In the previous question, you indicated that you are currently not doing the following basic activities when visiting
a physical store and browsing for products and services. Are you interested in doing any of these in the future?
(% respondents)
Search for coupons, offers and promotions
View and compare products and services from other retailers
View the retailer’s catalogues, products or information
Receive recommendations for alternate products
Scan barcodes or QR codes to get product information
Locate out-of-stock items in other stores and locations from the same retailer
Locate out-of-stock items from other retailers
Hold or order out-of-stock items
Schedule personal-shopping appointments with preferred sales associates
Communicate with friends for advice on buying decisions
42
39
36
34
31
31
28
25
15
12

When visiting a physical store and browsing for products and services, which of the following advanced activities
do you conduct on your mobile device now?
(% respondents)
Use store maps for navigation within a store or shopping mall
Receive personalised notifications, recommendations or offers based on my preferences
Receive in-store notifications, recommendations or offers based on my location
Access shopping lists through the retailer’s mobile services
Scan barcodes or QR codes to receive offers and promotions
Make payments without having to go to a register or kiosk
Use digital fitting rooms or design centres
Request or schedule a home service (eg, delivery shipment, installation)
Access shopping lists through third-party mobile services to shop at several retailers
37
35
33
26
25
23
17
16
14
In the previous question, you indicated that you are currently not doing the following advanced activities
when visiting a physical store and browsing for products and services.
(% respondents)
Make payments without having to go to a register or kiosk
Receive in-store notifications, recommendations or offers based on my location
Scan barcodes or QR codes to receive offers and promotions
Receive personalised notifications, recommendations or offers based on my preferences
Use store maps for navigation within a store or shopping mall
Use digital fitting rooms or design centres
Access shopping lists through the retailer’s mobile services
Request or schedule a home service (eg, delivery shipment, installation)
Access shopping lists through third-party mobile services to shop at several retailers
40
40
33
32
31
30
25
19
18

Very
desirable
Somewhat
desirable
Minimally
desirable
Not at all
desirable
Provide product information, comparisons, ratings or alternates
Check prices
Check inventory for product availability
Locate and reserve out-of-stock items
Schedule personal-shopper appointments
Schedule shipment, delivery, installation
mobile devices for the following basic tasks?
(% respondents)
46 36 13 4
57 32 8 3
59 29 9 3
50 34 13 4
27 32 28 12
42 38 16 4
Very
desirable
Somewhat
desirable
Minimally
desirable
Not at all
desirable
Know when I enter the store
Offer personalised recommendations and offers
Take payment without going to a register or kiosk
Demonstrate virtual fitting rooms or virtual design centres
Collect my contact information for personalised offers, recommendations and/or follow-up calls
mobile devices for the following?
(% respondents)
27 29 22 22
34 38 18 9
42 34 15 9
30 35 22 13
27 33 21 19
When in a physical store, what technology features would prevent you from making the purchase elsewhere
using your mobile device?
(% respondents)
Faster shopping because store personnel can process payments with mobile devices
A more seamless experience across the retailer’s website, mobile services and store
Personalised store experience based on my history, profile and/or location
More proactive store associates who effectively use mobile devices to improve customer service
Offering of more product or service options
Digital tools that help me make my purchase decisions (ie, offered in the store or via mobile)
Quicker response to locating and offering out-of-stock items
38
36
36
34
33
26
22

Which of the following shopping-related social media activities do you conduct on your mobile device now and
which would you be interested in doing in the future?
(% respondents)
Get bonus reward points or coupons via social media
“Like” or “follow” my favourite retail stores to learn about products, services and promotions
Use social media to make complaints or express disfavour to retailers
Use social media to ask retailers questions
Use social media to praise or thank retailers
Notify friends and followers when I’m in a retail store
Notify friends and followers when I’m in a retail store expressly to redeem special offers
54
51
46
42
42
36
34
Why don’t you share positive experiences about retailers online?
Select two.
(% respondents)
I am not interested in sharing my opinions online
There are so many online reviews that my review will not matter or get attention
Posting online reviews is too difficult or time-consuming
I do not use social media
I never read online reviews
I do not think online reviews are useful in general
I do not want to help the retailer’s business
49
23
22
22
7
6
4
Less than
once a
month
1 to 3 4 to 8 9 to 15 More than 15 I do not share
these experiences
on social media
Positive experiences
Negative experiences
On average, how many times a month do you share a positive or negative experience about a retailer online
(eg social media platforms, retailer sites or third-party review sites)?
Select one.
(% respondents)
26 24 11 7 5 27
33 14 7 5 6 35

Strongly
concerned
Moderately
concerned
Minimally
concerned
Not at all
concerned
Personalising products or services
Personalising the display of products or services
Sending targeted marketing messages
Sending targeted promotions or coupons
Sharing my personal information with business partners
How concerned are you about retailers collecting and using your personal information
(eg, name, location, purchases and habits) for the following purposes?
(% respondents)
29 38 26 8
22 42 27 8
27 38 27 8
24 33 30 13
50 31 12 7
Under what circumstances are you comfortable with retailers sharing your shopping behaviour with third parties?
Please select all that apply.
(% respondents)
When I am asked permission and opt-in
When I am notified and can opt-out
When I am rewarded (ie, with coupons, rebates, loyalty points)
When it is disclosed in the terms of service or privacy policy
When it yields offers that are relevant or valuable to me
I am not comfortable sharing my shopping behaviour with third parties
50
38
27
26
23
23
Why don’t you share negative experiences about retailers online?
Select two.
(% respondents)
I am not interested in sharing my opinions online
There are so many online reviews that my review will not matter or get attention
Posting online reviews is too difficult or time-consuming
I do not use social media
I do not want to hurt the retailer’s business
I never read online reviews
I do not think online reviews are useful in general
42
24
21
17
12
8
8

Strongly
concerned
Moderately
concerned
Minimally
concerned
Not at all
concerned
Location data (ie, GPS)
Social media data
Financial data
Personal or behavioural data from my mobile devices (eg, contacts, calendar, photos, mobile usage)
Personal or behavioural data from other connected devices (eg, fitness data from smartwatches and monitors)
How concerned are you about retailers collecting and using the following types of data?
(% respondents)
49 32 14 5
41 35 18 6
61 26 8 4
54 31 11 4
50 32 12 5
Very willing Somewhat
willing
Not at all
willing
Location
Contacts
Calendar
Notifications
Camera and photos
Microphone
How willing are you to grant retailers permission to access the following information and functions
on your mobile device?
(% respondents)
21 36 43
15 28 56
17 33 50
20 40 40
16 22 62
13 28 60
Very high Somewhat
high
Moderate Somewhat
low
Very low
Two years ago
Today
How would you rate your level of trust in a retailer to keep secure your personal and financial information
(ie name, address, payment information, behaviour data) two years ago and today?
Please select a response on a scale from “very high” to “very low” in each column.
(% respondents)
17 17 30 15 21
16 20 29 14 20

Asia-Pacific
North America
Western Europe
Latin America
Africa
CIS
Middle East
In which region are you personally located?
(% respondents)
23
23
23
22
4
3
1
Under 21
21 to 25
26 to 30
31 to 35
36 to 40
41 to 50
51 to 60
61 to 70
Over 70
How old are you?
(% respondents)
2
18
16
15
13
18
13
5
0
Male
Female
Are you male or female?
(% respondents)
54
46
Under $10,000
$10,000 to $15,000
$15,001 to $20,000
$20,001 to $25,000
$25,001 to $30,000
$30,001 to $35,000
$35,001 to $40,000
$40,001 to $45,000
$45,001 to $50,000
$50,001 to $55,000
$55,001 to $60,000
$60,001 to $65,000
$65,001 to $70,000
$70,001 to $80,000
$80,001 to $90,000
$90,001 to $100,000
$100,001 to $125,000
Over $125,000
What is your annual income in US dollars?
(% respondents)
18
10
6
6
8
6
3
4
4
5
3
2
3
3
3
4
6
6
Elementary/secondary school
High school diploma or equivalent
College degree
Master’s degree
Doctorate, law or medical degree
Other
Please indicate the highest level of education
you have completed.
(% respondents)
4
24
48
19
4
1

Whilst every effort has been taken to verify the accuracy of this
information, neither The Economist Intelligence Unit Ltd. nor the
sponsor of this report can accept any responsibility or liability
for reliance by any person on this white paper or any of the
information, opinions or conclusions set out in the white paper.

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