NEW YORK - An Arc Worldwide executive at the Mcommerce Summit: State of Mobile Commerce 2011 conference said the big difference between heavy and light mobile shoppers is in how they use mobile devices in the process of their lives.

According to research conducted by Arc Worldwide, 10 percent of consumers are heavy mobile shoppers while 39.1 percent are light mobile shoppers. There is a lot of similarity in the demographics for these groups. The conference was organized by Mobile Commerce Daily.

?The primary difference between the two segments is the way people use mobile phones in the process of their lives,? said Nick Fotis, digital strategy manager at Arc Worldwide, Chicago.

?Heavy shoppers are using phones for everything they do and shopping is an extension of that,? he said.

Shoppers are primarily iPhone users, while light shoppers are more likely to use Android and BlackBerry devices.

?Of the light shopper segment, there?s a portion who is likely to remain light mobile shoppers, because the mobile device is a segmented part of their overall life,? Mr. Fotis said.  ?Another portion of light shoppers will move more into shopping as their devices get more sophisticated.?

While light shoppers are similar to heavy shoppers in terms of age and income, light shoppers also engage with their mobile phones beyond calling at significantly lower rates than heavy shoppers.

For example, when it comes to using applications, 55 percent of heavy shoppers engage with apps on a weekly basis while 51 percent of light shoppers engage with apps on a monthly basis.

Highly engaged
There is also disparity when it comes to the consumption of gift guides, with 54 percent of heavy shoppers using gift guides and only 8 percent of light shoppers.

Heavy shoppers also look up store hours, look for deals at nearby stores, participate with gift cards and share photos while in a store at significantly higher rates.

Kathryn Koegel, chief of insights at Primary Impact, New York, delved more into the topic of who is using mobile devices and how they?re engaging with it.

?Right now in this stage in mobile, mobile has incredible penetration rates but, not everybody is using those phones for mobile media, like an app or are accessing the Web,? Ms. Koegel said.

The number of consumers using mobile phones only for calling is 28.5 percent.

However, this number has declined 17.2 percent year over year while mobile media usage grew 23 percent. Forty two percent of mobile phone owners are now using mobile media.

People in their early thirties are the biggest users of mobile media while mcommerce tends to skew younger.

Mobile commerce is happening right now through sites such as eBay, Amazon and iTunes.

However, the introduction of less expensive smartphone devices and data plans will lead to more commerce behavior in the future and smartphone penetration grows.

Smartphone penetration will top 50 percent by the second quarter of 2012.

?The presence of a smartphone changes people?s behavior dramatically,? Ms. Koegel said.

Mobile is also a good way to reach urban audiences, with 87 percent of black non-Hispanic consumers and Hispanic consumers owning a cell phone versus 80 percent of white, non-Hispanic consumers.

?The digital divide between white and nonwhite consumers in the U.S., doesn?t exist in mobile,? Ms. Koegel said. ?If you want to appeal to urban audiences, you need to be focusing on mobile.?

Many mobile sites transactional
Jill Dvorak, senior consultant with FitForCommerce, Short Hills, NJ, spoke more to retailers? activities in mobile.

The good news is that 84 percent of mobile sites are transactional.

For the 16 percent of sites that aren?t transactional, there are ways to add value via mobile through information and non-transactional services like refilling a prescription or looking for special offers.

?You don?t always have to be transactional to be relevant to your customer base,? Ms. Dvorak said.

Seventy percent of mass retailers currently offer scanning functionality as a way to provide information that can?t fit on an in-store shelf, such as video and statistics.

J&R, for example, has an app that reads QR codes and lets consumers browse product information, ratings, reviews and technical details.

However, retail sites are missing an opportunity when it comes to using rich media to translate catalogs onto the Web and better imagery, with only 5 percent of mobile retailers using rich media.

?Really taking advantage of rich media certainly doesn?t hurt for conversion,? Ms. Dvorak said.

Some retailers also lag when it come to offering basic information such as a store locator, with 10 percent of mobile retailers still not telling mobile shoppers where stores are.

?That is rather shocking,? Ms. Dvorak said.

Asking for location permission is common, with 60 percent of benchmark retailers engaged in this activity.

?This number jumped about 20 percent from October and I imagine it will jump again this holiday season,? Ms. Dvorak said. ?It is a pretty powerful tool.?

Easy check-out is key
Other stats highlighted during the session include that 50 percent of department stores offer catalog quick search, 12 percent of benchmark retailers offer pick up in-store functionality, 100 percent of mass retailers offer preorder capabilities, 40 percent of mobile retail sites let customers store credit cards as payment information and 100 percent of office supply stores in mobile offers a feedback mechanism for shoppers.

Joy Liuzzo, senior director at InsightExpress, said that it is important to have an easy check-out mechanism in mobile.

?As long as you get that right, you?re all set,? Ms. Liuzzo said.

?This is going to make people who are already buying on mobile continue to do so,? she said. ?I don?t know if it?ll attract people aren?t doing mcommerce.?

Final Take