2012 Tablet Trends and Best Practices

Dennis Blankenship, Managing Principal Retail VES - Verizon Enterprise Solution, Verizon
Verizon
June 2012



In today’s omni-channel retail world there’s just one rule: there are no rules. The store has to be open 24/7. As we all know, despite the gloomy economic conditions of the last two years there has been recession-defying growth in the use of high-end smart phones and tablets capable of supporting advanced shopping experiences. The latter are changing retail profoundly. Perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising: driven by the iPad, tablets offer the same portability as a smart phone plus extended screen space, which can be used to accommodate richer, more compelling mobile shopping creative propositions.

This increase in smart phone up-take has driven a commensurate explosion in mobile applications usage. Prompted by the resounding popularity of mobile applications, stores for the many mobile operating platforms and devices, many consumers have already happily taken to downloading retail apps onto their devices.

In this white paper we’ll look at why and how this revolution is happening, charting the history of relevance of mobile and in particular the tablet segment. We’ll show that despite the fact that the tablet market, as we all understand it, is barely two years old, there are signs that consumers are starting to show category-specific device preferences with clear preferences in the key retail sectors of a user base keen to take the tablets.