What Last Year’s Retail Trends Mean for 2012

3. Mobile is making a retailer's job a lot harder. Consumers increasing use of mobile devices is no secret. Consider the following: 28 percent of consumers said they shopped via a mobile device over last year's Thanksgiving weekend; just 9 percent of retailers said their company doesn't have a mobile strategy, compared to 26 percent in 2010; and 28 percent of retailers consider their mobile strategy to be "evolved" vs. just 20 percent who thought so in 2010. Direct sales are only a small part of the mobile equation at this point (accounting for $6 billion in sales in 2011, just 2 percent of all retail sales). It's the cross-channel impact of mobile marketing and commerce that retailers should be concerning themselves with, Mulpuru said. Technologies such as 3-D cameras and near field communication are great, but consumers are most frequently using their smartphones for simple tasks such as checking a store's hours, looking for the nearest retail store or looking up product information.