Millennials Just Love Them A Cyber Xmas

Digital Performance software company Dynatrace today announced the results of a new five-country consumer survey (PDF) on mobile shopping for the 2015 holiday season, revealing that Millennials age 18 to 34 are driving a new era of demand for digital performance excellence.

According to the survey, 81 per cent of Millennial-aged smartphone and/or tablet owners across all countries say they will abandon transactions and shop elsewhere if a mobile site or mobile app is buggy, slow or prone to crashes – and over half (51 per cent) are likely to broadcast their complaints about poor online shopping experiences on social media.

The survey was conducted online by Harris Poll on behalf of Dynatrace in October among 5,110 smartphone and/or tablet owners across the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany and Australia.

Millennials are mobile, social and expect higher customer experience quality than previous generations. Their demands for digital excellence show what the future holds and puts significant pressure on retailers to adapt.

Key findings from Dynatrace’s 2015 Mobile Holiday Shopping Survey include:

Smartphone and tablet shopping will be a dominant factor across web, mobile web and mobile applications in 2015:

60 per cent of Millennial smartphone/tablet users and 42 per cent of all smartphone/tablet users are planning to use their smartphones and/or tablets to do more holiday shopping this year than last, which already reached historic levels.

Millennial smartphone/tablet users are shifting into overdrive, as 50 per cent will do more holiday shopping on their smartphones and/or tablets than they will by making in store purchases.

If you are a retailer in the U.K., watch out, because 60 per cent of Millennial smartphone/tablet users will buy more using their devices than buying in brick and mortar stores.

More than 1 in every 4 smartphone/tablet users (27 per cent) and nearly 4 of every 10 Millennial smartphone and/or tablet users (37 per cent) will use their devices to make purchases when they are in stores shopping for gifts.

62 per cent of Millennial smartphone/tablet users will use their smartphones and/or tablets when they are in physical stores shopping for gifts to compare prices, read product reviews and download coupons.

Millennial smartphone/tablet users in the U.S. are leading the charge here, with 71 per cent marching into stores with their devices on and ready to compare prices, read product reviews and download coupons when shopping for gifts.

75 per cent of all smartphone/tablet users and 81 per cent of Millennial smartphone/tablet users report that if a mobile site or mobile app is buggy, slow or prone to crashes they would abandon it and shop elsewhere.

Millennial smartphone/tablet users in Germany showed the least forgiveness, with 87 per cent saying they would abandon a buggy app and shop elsewhere.

49 per cent of Millennial smartphone/tablet users and 47 per cent of all adults using smartphones and/or tablets say they would shop elsewhere if a mobile site or app fails to load in 3 seconds or less.

68 per cent of smartphone/tablet users say they would try a mobile site or app one more time if it did not work the first time – an immediate loss of 32 per cent of shoppers.

In today’s digital world, your apps are your brands – and if they deliver poor experiences, the world will hear about it and brand and customer loyalty will suffer, as 51 per cent of Millennial smartphone/tablet users say they are likely to complain on social media about a poor online shopping experience.

Australian Millennial smartphone/tablet users are leading here, with 59 per cent likely to complain about a poor online shopping experience on social media.

54 per cent of Millennial smartphone/tablet users prefer to use company-specific mobile applications downloaded from an app store rather than company websites when shopping on smartphones and/or tablets.

Why this preference? 62 per cent of Millennial smartphone/tablet users say that company-specific mobile applications have better user experience and performance than a company website.

UK Millennial smartphone/tablet users also led in this category, with 71 per cent feeling that company-specific mobile apps have better user experience and performance than company websites.