French people's addiction to mobile phones, an opportunity for e-tailers

The French, and in particular young people, are totally addicted to the smartphone. A social phenomenon that must be fully understood by e-tailers. According to the 2015 edition of the Arcep-CGE "digital barometer" - the annual reference study on French digital practices - more than one person in two (58%) is equipped with a smartphone. This figure even reaches 98% in the 18-39 age group. The classic mobile terminal is falling, representing only a third of the total. If the people most equipped with smartphones are from CSP++ and urban areas, the trend and democratization of its use as shown by the sales of smartphone (+ of 90% of sales).

The Deloitte study, published at the same time, underlines that the smartphone is now used everywhere, all the time. More than a third of people consult it within 30 minutes of waking up, 38% on average 10 times a day and 25% up to 25 times! Work is the place where it is most used, followed by home and on the move...

Downtime and sales opportunity

It is an understatement to say that we can only agree with the study, which stresses that "mobile is the ideal communication vector for companies and represents a real commercial challenge". And to underline the opportunities to offer targeted advertising (at the right time, in the right place) and big data analysis that will allow companies to better know their customers to offer a highly personalised service. Even before this stage, Quable will insist on the need for companies to have a mobile strategy, starting with a responsive design site or an e-Commerce application. This first step is indeed a way to capture customers during "dead time" such as travel, non-strategic meetings, lunch breaks... which are all opportunities to place an order online.

Inform yourself rather than buy

Making... or rather preparing an order because, as the Deloitte study shows, the act of paying using a mobile phone is still underdeveloped. Payment on an e-commerce site is thus practised by 31% of respondents. The increase compared to 2014 (+12%) is encouraging, but there is still a lot of room for improvement! As for paying with a mobile phone in a shop, only 8% of French people have done so... mainly because of the lack of security (49%), followed shortly afterwards by the lack of real benefit (41%).

These figures lead us to believe that, before the transaction, we need to capitalize on product information with products such as Product Information Management (PIM), by providing exhaustive, illustrated and easy-to-read information. What's more, the Deloitte study shows that 48% of French people have used their cell phones to visit shopping sites or use shopping applications.