“More than half of adult cell phone owners used their cell phones while they were in a store during the 2011 holiday season to seek help with purchasing decisions.”

This is the quote I have seen repeatedly across the web since the Pew Research Study “The rise of in-store mobile commerce” was released on January 30th. This quote, when taken out of context of the remainder of the report, is misleading. Mobile adoption for in-store experiences is not 50%!

Let’s be clear on what the research says: 52% of people used their mobile devices at least once in store during  a 30 day period. And, they used their devices to perform such tasks as call a friend for advice, look up review, or look up a price. Only 33% used their phone specifically for online information while inside a physical store—either product reviews or pricing information; again, at least once in a 30 day period.

Even with these caveats, these numbers should be questioned:

First of all, this was the holiday season, where shopping is far different than the rest of the year. People are (mostly) shopping for others. The fact that they would call a friend or family member is probably more likely during this time of year to get gift ideas, remember a size, or get input.

Second, if you have visited a mall or a big box store lately and looked for people using mobile phones while shopping, you would know that people don’t. In fact, with the introduction of Amazon Price Checker, it is a bit awkward to have your smartphone out. If you scan something then the sales associates assume you are price checking and may ignore you or give you a dirty look. Besides, using a phone is too hard when you are actually shopping. You want to touch items and having your phone in hand makes that hard.

Bottom line, don’t believe the hype. Mobile has promise, but the belief that everyone is out there using their phones in stores is simply not true. While a phone can be a useful tool in some situations, people are still shopping in stores the old fashioned way and mobile has a long way to go.

This is the sixth in Baynote’s ten-part series of cartoons by award-winning cartoonist Tom Fishburne, titled “Intent to Buy”. We’ve received some great feedback from you on our cartoons, so please continue to let us know what you think! To say thanks for your input, we’ll send you a print signed by Tom if you post a comment within one week (U.S. addresses only).

Make no mistake: selling online is hard work. With statistics reporting that up to 75 percent of all shopping carts are abandoned just before the sale is closed, it’s a miracle that most retailers haven’t been institutionalized. The good news? Personalization may be just what the doctor ordered. By providing a customized experience that identifies and addresses their in-the-moment needs, retailers can help shoppers go the distance, all the way to the checkout button.

The Personalization Roundup is an ongoing blog series featuring the most evocative news, articles and blogs curated by Baynote each month highlighting the rapidly growing topic of web personalization. For this month’s roundup, we’ve combed the web to once again bring you the latest and greatest on the personalization revolution.

January kicked off with a bang as we said ‘goodbye’ to 2011 and ‘hello’ to 2012 and a fresh set of resolutions. Retailers took a hard look at their failures and successes over the last 12 months and began setting new benchmarks for performance across their channels. With a record-breaking holiday shopping season behind us, now is the time for retailers to take action and ensure their online storefronts are up to snuff. Read on to find out how personalization is positioning brands for success and sparking innovation and disruption in the New Year:

Consumer Sentiment with Online Holiday Shopping Experience Improves but Retailers Have Long Road Ahead with Mobile and Social , Baynote—We’re not usually one to toot our own horn, but with outlets like Internet Retailer and TechCrunch covering the news, the results of our 2^nd Annual Holiday Online Shopping Experience Survey made big waves this month. Check out the report and infographic to discover, among other key findings, how 57 percent of shoppers bought products personally recommended to them this holiday season.

For Mobile Commerce: The Year Of Convergence And Context, Forbes—Mobile commerce emerged as the true channel to watch in 2011 with total m-commerce purchases exceeding $10 billion. But what if mobile commerce isn’t what we think it is? Marketing SVP Jeff Caron explains the subtle, but distinct differences between mobile-enabled ecommerce and mobile commerce and explains how personalization can provide a “transformational” mobile shopping experience for the shopper that influences behavior and boosts spending.  

How Will We Read: Textbooks?, Huffington Post—Vineet Madan, VP of McGraw-Hill Education, a leading provider of education tools, believes using technology to individualize online educational programs and textbooks could very well reinvent education as we know it. “Personalization” says Madan, “will help break the performance rut associated with today’s industrial production model of education.”

You Can’t Spell Media Without “Me”, TechCrunch—Social media distributor and WetPaint CEO Ben Elowitz knows that understanding one’s audience is the hallmark of any great communicator. This is why, according to Elowitz, the media industry’s greatest failure has been its unwillingness to open its eyes and ears to its own audiences: until now.  Does personalization have the “greatest potential to transform the media business,” as Elowitz suggests? We certainly believe so.

No More Average 32-Year-Old Woman, but Market Myth Persists, AdAge—Just as man cannot live on bread alone, retailers cannot market by demographic alone. Milan Mahadevan hammers this truth home in AdAge, declaring that “many marketers already have the tools they need to realize the benefits of personalization, but most insist on using the same tired techniques when examining “average” consumer behavior.”

1. Provide a customized search engine that works

According to our survey, retailers have a lot of room to improve when it comes to helping shoppers find the products they are looking for. The number one concern for consumers* was that when searching for a product on a retailer’s search engine they are shown too many different products to choose from. This lack of personalization results in a busy array of content, confused buyers and high bounce rates.

2. Avoid generic landing pages

After clicking on a scarf your customer is interested in purchasing, they’re directed to a landing page of all the accessories you offer. We think this all too common scenario a little backwards and your customers will agree. Over the holidays, 34% of consumers ended up on generic home pages instead of the specific product page they were looking for through search. Make sure to connect the products themselves with the appropriate landing pages, respectively. For more practice advice on how to create landing pages that drive sales, check out our article in Bloomberg BusinessWeek.

3. Personalize the customer experience

Once the customer is on your page, it’s key that you keep them there. How do you keep them from searching yourcompetitor.com? Provide relevant and recommended content to what they are searching for in the first place. 22% of those surveyed found that not only were the search box results poor but it was difficult to find content they liked. By understanding buyer intent, and offering products your buyer may be interested in, you are optimizing the customer experience and increasing the chances that the consumer will find what they are looking for (and possibly a pair of matching socks).

4. Send emails that relate to things the customer might actually want to buy

As our cartoon demonstrates, sometimes emails offer you things you were interested in 10 years ago or that only your old aunt Betty would consider buying at a high discount. This can lead to disinterested readers and high unsubscription rates. On the other hand, if customer emails are personalized enough to provide content that fits the individual’s preferences, your email engagement and conversion rates will increase. And, proven conversion? Well, that’s just an email marketer’s dream.

*The Baynote Annual survey included 1,032 completed surveys and was conducted between cyber Monday and Christmas Eve.

In addition, while only 9 percent purchased a product on a Facebook fan page, 55 percent said getting advice on products from friends was important, indicating retailers are missing an opportunity to exploit the social graph. However, the real opportunity does not live on Facebook, per se. Those retailers that effectively integrate social graph data and features into their own websites to better personalize the shopping experience will win big. See my recent article about this topic in MultiChannel Merchant.

Interested in learning more? Be sure to read our study for additional findings on social and numerous other topics related to the online shopping experience over the recent holiday.

Baynote Annual Shopping Survey in 2011 and 2012:

Survey Stat: 14.4% of consumers (up from 12.6% in last year’s shopping survey) used their mobile phones to purchase over the holidays.

What it Means: Enabling purchasing on phones is a nice to have for many retailers. However, according to our survey, 77.6% of consumers are using their phones as a shopping aid, primarily for research and comparison shopping.With this in mind, we recommend that retailers not just look at mobile as a selling tool but as a research tool. Think of ways you can help shoppers get more information on the products you sell or compare products in an effective, clear and unobtrusive way.

Survey Stat: 23% of those surveyed said that their personalized shopping experiences on a tablet exceeded expectations.

What it means: The higher quality of the consumer experience, the higher value of the channel. While smartphones won the vote for met expectations (64.7%), tablets won the vote for exceeded expectations (23%). More and more retailers have had time to integrate mobile strategies and incorporate personalized experiences, whereas tablets are still in their infancy. Since we know that users are primarily using mobile to comparison shop, and tablet to comparison shop and purchase, the likelihood that the tablet experience exceeded their expectations is increased.

The strategic use of mobile and tablet will open doors for retailers. However, what consumers want is convenience. It isn’t about just being on mobile, social, or tablet but instead providing a positive experience and seamless transition between them all.

First up: tablets.

When we received the initial results, one of the very first things that popped out at us was how many tablet owners bought products with their devices this year. Not just researched with, but actually purchased.

While most people still don’t own a tablet (16.8% of the survey respondents), nearly half of those who do made a purchase with their device at some point during the holiday shopping season:

Further, 60% of tablets owners expect to make a purchase in the next year with the device, with 23% saying they’ll do so in just the next three months.

Considering just how new the tablet is in the history of computing, it’s astounding to see numbers like these, indicating that the future of m-commerce is clearly in the tablet. And we are not the only ones to draw this conclusion; leading e-commerce industry analysts have also made similar statements.

Steve Jobs was on to something, wasn’t he?

To be fair, the tablet still has a long road ahead: Only 1.1% of respondents said tablets were the main way they researched products this season and only 1.2% said tablets were their primary purchase path – retail websites led in both respects. And overall, respondents graded the tablet a B- this season on the shopping experience. They also gave them a B- on features like personalization, which has proven to be one of the key drivers behind positive consumer experiences on retail websites. If retailers want to capitalize on the tablet revolution, they’ll need to make significant steps in optimizing the user experience, including looking to what’s worked well on the PC.

Interested in learning more? Be sure to read our study for even more findings on the tablet and numerous other topics related to the online shopping experience over the recent holiday.

This is the fifth in Baynote’s ten-part series of cartoons by award-winning cartoonist Tom Fishburne, titled “Intent to Buy”. We’ve received some great feedback from you on our cartoons, so please continue to let us know what you think! To say thanks for your input, we’ll send you a print signed by Tom if you post a comment within one week (U.S. addresses only).

In life, there is only one constant: that nothing remains the same. As anyone who had a perm in the 80s will tell you, that can be a very, very good thing. But what happens when retailers fail to take these life changes into account when providing personalized offers to their shoppers?

As Tom Fishburne’s latest cartoon illustrates, personalizing e-mail offers based on old data is a surefire way to ensure they end up in the diaper pail. And sometimes, as confirmed by this bachelor who’s apparently given up one heck of a lifestyle in favor of burp cloths and domestic bliss would surely tell you, it can be downright cruel.

If you want to get the most return on your deals (who wouldn’t?), start first by working to discover clues about your audience’s in-the-moment needs, and then targeting your offers from there. This guy surely would be responding better to that approach, and all bets are on that you would, too.

Keeping up with the Millennials. The next-generation consumer is today’s 15-year-old kid, and their generation will expect the customer experience to be customized based on their history, preferences, social graph, intent and location. As if that weren’t enough, Millennials want to be an active participant in the manipulation of the experience. If they can’t interact with the brand in a customized manner, they’ll discard it and move on to a competitor.

Bryan Eisenberg, author of “Always Be Testing”, implored today’s retailers to prioritize keeping pace with customers over simply staying ahead of the competition. Eisenberg’s session, “The Future Shopper: How Offline is the New Online”, featured a thought-provoking video on what marketers should be thinking about as today’s children grow older and become the new target customers with high expectations. Check out the controversial video here and tell us what you think.

A seamless customer experience is no longer a nice-to-have. Forget the notion of the three-screen world – channel convergence means that we exist in a one-screen world. The screen in front of your customer right now is the only screen they care about, and today’s retailers had better be able to deliver relevant content to their customers in the moment and regardless of device. Consistency of experience between channels is key, and retailers must be prepared to optimize this in order to win the customers of tomorrow.

Finally, Flash Sales were another hot topic today, and the retail industry is really beginning to embrace the tactic as they recognize that these sales excite consumers about spending in retail again. Even stores like Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom are getting onboard with daily deals and limited time offers for their subscribers.

(Speaking of flash, did anyone catch today’s Flash Mob in front of the Oracle booth? It was an impressive brand promotion tactic for newcomer Zmags – killer dance skills, too).

That wraps up this year’s NRF Big Show. At 27,000 attendees strong, it’s safe to say that the retail industry is experiencing growth at a time when many other industries are contracting. We’re proud to be a part of this giant ecosystem and head home armed with a wealth of new knowledge, ideas and friends. Ciao, New York!

The Baynote team is onsite at THE retail event of the year, The National Retail Federation’s Annual Big Show in New York City. Here’s a recap of today’s highlights from the Big Apple.

Hail to the Chief –  Make that former Chief. Bill Clinton presented to a packed house this morning, providing his take on the current state of economic conditions. A baby boomer, the former President says his generation never had to worry about making a living until now. “During my young adulthood, success in your chosen field was uncertain, but I never doubted that I could make a living,” Clinton said. “The recent economic downturn has shattered that.” This uncertainty out in the job market is reshaping the way we think about gender roles in retail jobs. Men are now taking more and more in-store retail positions – jobs formerly held mostly by women. For more takeaways from today’s keynote, check out #ClintonKeynote on Twitter.

Social isn’t going anywhere – It may not be the holy grail of online commerce, but it does have its place in the buying cycle. In fact, according to Sucharita Mulpuru of Forrester Research, social media gives consumers a great way to share and discover new products, trends and promotions – and shoppers are taking note. While we shouldn’t expect to see the Facebook Marketplace dominating eCommerce any time soon, social media does hold sway when it comes to influencing consumers and accelerating air cover for deals and promotions.

Convergence – Channels are converging and it’s important to optimize the online presence with this in mind. Most consumers interact with a brand over several devices before making a purchase, so simply relying on conversion rates by channel is unreliable. Instead, Mulpuru recommends optimizing site design and development for the lowest common denominator to ensure that the content you spend so much time cultivating isn’t buried because of poor accessibility.

Self-Directed Personalization - IBM and Lowe’s teamed up to discuss self-directed personalization. Lowe’s is using MyLowes to get customers to input their own data into Lowes.com (i.e. as they’re re-doing a bedroom or bathroom, they enter the paint color, furniture style etc.).  Not only does this data allow for improved product suggestions, but it opens an opportunity to recommend content (lifestyle, how-tos)  based on taste and style preferences. This helps reinforce another principle espoused by Lowe’s: establishing and upholding the brand promise throughout the customer-seller interaction, (i.e., across every touch point).