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Is the iPad Changing the Way We Shop? Or Is the Way We Shop Changing How We Use the iPad?

This article is more than 10 years old.

English: An iPad 2 on stand. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I hit the mall along with countless other fiercely determined, value-hunting shoppers this weekend. Everywhere, it seemed, people were holding up their smartphones, scanning in items and comparing prices online. So many in fact that, like the ever-present Christmas decorations, after a while I saw the phones but didn't really see them, if you get what I mean.

Also, I had an eye peeled for something else--people using tablets to shop, especially the smaller tablets like the iPad Mini. I got this idea a month or so ago from a poll (and, sorry, I can't remember where) asking if it was acceptable to take photos in public with the iPad Mini.

It's a fascinating question and the answer has implications for showrooming too, of course. While few people won't hesitate to hold up a palm-sized device to scan, calculate and compute whether to buy a product, holding up a tablet seems too intrusive, almost akin to standing too close to someone in the elevator.

But maybe that's just me. I didn't see that many people holding up tablets to scan products and/or take pictures of items to send to someone else, but I did see a few.

Apple Rules Mobile Online Shopping

A more convincing piece of evidence—albeit still not conclusive—that tablets are making their way into the shopping center comes from the last tally of online shopping stats provided by IBM's Smarter Commerce for Thanksgiving and Black Friday. As IBM's early statistics suggested it would, the iPad generated more traffic than any other tablet or smartphone, reaching nearly 10% of online shopping. This was followed by iPhone at 8.7% and Android 5.5%.

Not surprisingly, the iPad dominated tablet traffic at 88.3% followed by the Barnes and Noble Nook at 3.1%, Amazon Kindle at 2.4% and the Samsung Galaxy at 1.8%.

One theory for the iPad's dominance this weekend is that more people than expected retired to their sofas after Thanksgiving Day dinner and shopped, using their iPads.

Standing in Line, Clutching a Tablet

Another, though, is that more people were totting their iPads and Android devices (sorry, Google OEMers I don't mean to give your product lines the short shrift but the numbers are what they are) to the store to make sure they got the ultimate, best, bottom-dollar value.

The jury's still out on this, but here is one observation made by Thom Blischok, chief retail strategist for Booz & Company, on Thanksgiving Day. Blischok visited about a dozen stores that day and evening, spending about eight to ten hours talking up some 100 to 150 shoppers. One of them was a woman standing in line waiting to enter Kmart at 6 am.  She enters, checks out the sale prices on the appliances and then pulls out her tablet. "She found a better price online and bought it from her tablet right there on the spot," Blischok says.