CHANTILLY, VA.—Hispanic people are outpacing non-Hispanics in their adoption of mobile, social and online sources for local shopping, according to a BIA/Kelsey Consumer Commerce Monitor study.
Hispanic people are far more likely to use tablets and smartphones for local shopping than non-Hispanics. According to the study, 23.6 percent of Hispanic consumers reported they use tablets for local shopping, compared with 15.5 percent of non-Hispanics. More than 48 percent of Hispanics polled use mobile devices for local shopping, compared with 32 percent of non-Hispanics. Among Hispanic mobile users, 52.5 percent report using their tablets and 42.5 percent report using their smartphones daily for local shopping.
BIA/Kelsey defines local shopping as any stage of the purchase funnel, from awareness through research, to transacting for products or services locally—within a 25-mile radius of primary residence. The firm’s definition of local products and services includes items such as groceries, restaurants, drugstore items, gasoline and other high-frequency purchases.
Hispanics and non-Hispanics rely more on search engines than mobile apps for local shopping. Sixty-one percent of Hispanics and 69 percent of non-Hispanics reported they “mostly use search engines” on a tablet or smartphone for local shopping. And while their mobile app usage is significantly lower than their use of search engines, Hispanics rely more on mobile apps for local shopping than non-Hispanics, by nearly two to one. Seventeen percent of Hispanic consumers reported they “mostly use apps” on a tablet or smartphone for local shopping, compared with 9 percent for non-Hispanics. In addition, Hispanic consumers reported using 5.1 mobile apps, on average, for daily shopping, compared with 2.7 apps for non-Hispanic consumers.
When using social media for local shopping, Hispanic consumers index higher than non-Hispanics on all social media networks, except Facebook, with 61 percent of Hispanics and 67 of non-Hispanics reporting they use Facebook for local shopping. Other social networks used for local shopping include:
- YouTube: 17.7 percent by Hispanics; 10.3 percent by non-Hispanics
- Yahoo: 16.8 percent by Hispanics; 16.4 percent by non-Hispanics
- Google+: 11.9 percent by Hispanics; 10.8 percent by non-Hispanics
- Twitter: 11.1 percent by Hispanics; 6.7 percent by non-Hispanics
Despite their heavy social media use, 83.2 percent of Hispanic consumers list family and friends as their most trustworthy source for local shopping information.
