• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, July 24, 2012

A new survey by mobile ad network Greystripe suggests mobile shoppers are more likely to evangelize brands or products than people who prefer to make purchases in physical stores.

The study found almost half (49%) of mobile shoppers routinely writing reviews about their product experiences, compared to only 31% of their traditional counterparts.
 
But if a mobile shopper is unhappy with a purchase, that also indicates they are more likely to complain about it online. The study showed that mobile shoppers are more likely (31%) to visit a brand's Web site or app first when looking for product information than in-store shoppers (24%).
 
Greystripe noted that mobile consumers demonstrated “less price sensitivity” than traditional shoppers, with 71% redeeming retailer coupons compared to 94% of those who prefer to shop at brick-and-mortar stores.
 
Mobile shoppers are most likely to buy based on ease of use, but they split about evenly when it came to preferring apps (51%) to the mobile Web (49%). More than half (52%) of mobile and traditional shoppers say they have purchased content like movies and music on their devices, making entertainment the top m-commerce category among survey participants. Digital products were followed by clothing or accessories (37%), tickets (35%), and daily deals and gift certificates, both at 34%, per comScore.
 
Kurt Hawks, general manager at Greystripe, said the research points to ways retailers can influence traditional shoppers’ purchasing decisions. For example, stores can incorporate coupons for in-store redemption into their mobile campaigns. They can also utilize full-screen ads to provide more product information to in-store buyers who use mobile to research purchases beforehand.
 
That strategy ties into Greystripe’s specialty of serving rich media and video ads within apps, as well as on the mobile Web. The company says it serves billions of full-screen impressions each month to 85 million touchscreen devices across 10,000 apps and mobile sites.

Results of the Greystripe study were drawn from a survey of 800 people who responded to the survey advertised on its network.