Welcome to the connected consumer. This person most likely has a tablet and smartphone, and is constantly connected to their friends via Facebook. Today, more than 60% of 25-34 year-olds (Gen-Y) own a smartphone. One in three online consumers will buy a tablet by 2014. That’s a lot to digest at once, right? A new survey from Zmags investigates the connected consumer and their digital habits.
Only 4% of these consumers use branded apps. Eighty-seven percent prefer to use websites and mobile sites. This is good news for the so-called tablet commerce revolution (can a consumer movement be rightly called a “revolution”? I shudder), which suggests that tablet owners are using tablet-optimized websites like Amazon.com. But this connected consumer is not a Gen-Y. She is…wait for it…a 40-something-year-old woman.
The survey also cites Facebook as an untapped opportunity: More than 75% of connected consumers are also active Facebook users. We have written before about how Facebook is not and will not become a mall. Even though 50% of consumers are logged into Facebook while shopping on an e-commerce site and 40% are engaged with brands’ fan pages, this doesn’t mean they’ll start shopping on Facebook. Meanwhile, social commerce sites like Fab.com growing quickly, attracting a design-focused audience.
The survey found that 87% of consumers relied on their PCs and laptops for browsing, researching and purchasing. Most consumers shopped on their tablet from the couch or from their smartphone.
According to the survey, a total 52% of connected consumers are women with a mean age of 40 and a household income of approximately $63,000. More than 43% of connected consumers own smartphones, and 16% own a tablet. The connected consumer prefers to shop via a website from a PC/laptop, not for a smartphone app.
The connected consumer is also on Facebook; in fact, 34% of tablet owners who are also connected consumers shop on Facebook from their tablet. This is pretty meaningless though, considering that only 9% of connected consumers visit a website from their tablet.
The Zmags survey is based on a relatively small sample size of 1500 people in the United States. It does not mention anything about their age, race, gender or location.
Image of the typical connected consumer via NutritionBreakThroughs.com.
