OtherLevels Study Finds Internet Retailers Are Slow to Adopt Mobile Messaging Channels

Monday, April 28, 2014

OtherLevels has published the Mobile Retail Study, a review of the top 500 internet retailers and how they use native mobile messaging channels like push, local notifications, in-app alerts and the rich inbox.

The data yielded some interesting findings that point to consistent growth of mobile apps among retailers (12% between 2012 and 2013). However the study shows that, while a little over 75% of the top 100 internet retailers have an app, they are not actually using it as part of their overall outbound messaging strategy.

Some statistics found in the survey:

- There was a 7% rise in published mobile apps among the top 100 internet retailers from 2012 to 2013.

- Although 77 of the top 100 retailers have published a downloadable app, only two-thirds of those retailers request that consumers opt-in for push when they launch the app.

- Mobile opt-in requests among the top 100 internet retailers have grown 27% over the course of 1 year.

- Of the top 100 retailers with a mobile app, 66% are actually sending push notifications, while the rest do not send pushes.

- Active push messaging has grown 48% between 2012 and 2013.

- Less than 20% of the top 100 retailers leverage a social sign on for their apps.

- Only 30% of the top 100 retailers request access to a device’s GPS location.

- Only 4 of the top 100 brands leverage a rich inbox (an email like inbox within the app) in their mobile apps.