Shopping marathons have been replaced by ‘small shopping moments’ on mobile devices

The final push of the holiday shopping is on and Canadians, according to Google and Ipsos’ latest survey, less than half have completed their lists.

The most significant trend this year is that Canadians are avoiding day-long mall marathons, instead opting to use their mobile phone to find the latest deals. Based on survey findings of 1,554 Canadian shoppers, Google says one in three Canadians have used their smartphone to search for products and services. In fact, it’s not just spending a few hours searching at one time, but “small shopping moments” that happen any time of the day.

Peak times for in-store shopping is said to be between 2 pm and 5 pm, but desktop and smartphone searches generally begin sometime between 7pm and 9pm. A more staggering stat was that 60 percent of Canadians who used their smartphone to search for products followed through and purchased. Unfortunately, missing from the survey was the average dollar amount per purchase.

These numbers follow a similar report that Ipsos released last week that stated 55 percent of smartphone owners now looks for competing deals and comparison shop from their phones while in stores, an increase of 13 percent year-over-year.