The high times of brick-and-mortar stores have passed. With the increasing popularity of mobile devices and growing availability of smartphones, more and more people would prefer mobile shopping for its convenience and time-saving characteristics. Yet, retailers are totally unprepared to respond to this growing trend, and research points in the same direction.

The matter of making actual purchases through the mobile web is still quite cumbersome, as far as most retailers are concerned.  Instead of searching for products, viewing, comparing and entering billing and payment information, customers who are not using the PC anymore, but a little mobile device with an ever smaller screen, have to sit tight before they can finish the purchase.

A study conducted by Acquiry Group last year reports that 12 percent of the top 500 US online retailers had sites compatible with mobile browsers, while only 7 percent had apps. Another survey carried out in the UK by Vanson Bourne on behalf of app developers Kony Solutions revealed that while many consumers use their mobile to make purchases, few retailers have mobile commerce strategies in place.

According to the research 42 percent of retailers consider it is already affecting shopping behavior at brick-and-mortar stores, and 89% believe mobile will be as popular as e-commerce has become. Yet only 16% of these retailers have an actual mobile strategy in place. More and more people are using mobile devices to check prices and product availability and Motorola’s study shows that 39% of store walk-outs are due to this customer practice.

Whereas 74 percent of retailers have a presence on the iPhone, only 58 percent of customers prefer to shop and browse on other platforms, meaning developers are still ignoring platforms such as the Android, webOS and so on.

While retailers are wasting precious time that could be used to increase their profits, carriers are giving retailers a helping hand. AT&T for example introduced a new service called Digby Mobile Commerce, helping retailers ‘design, deploy and manage mobile commerce Websites and rich applications optimized for smartphones.’ With this new tool retailers will be able to serve customers that go mobile shopping, on any supported OS.

Another growing trend in mobile shopping is the presence of virtual shopping assistants, such as Shopsavvy, currently used by 12 percent of US smartphone users. Such services enable users to quickly locate, research and buy products at the point of sale by barcode scanning or searching for a product by name. Competitors such as myShopanion try to keep up, introducing key search improvements and social shopping features. The latter feature allows users to benefit from having friends and family on hand for instant shopping advice, using an intuitive integration with Facebook, Twitter, and email.