The popularity of mobile shopping continues to grow. According to a survey conducted by PriceGrabber®, a part of Experian, an overwhelming 77 percent of consumers who own a tablet computer indicated they use either a tablet or a smartphone to shop. Conducted from Feb. 23, 2012, to March 2, 2012, the survey includes responses from 1,829 U.S. online shopping consumers, 22 percent of whom indicated that they own a tablet computer.

Most consumers make purchases from a mobile device several times a month

When consumers who use their mobile devices for shopping were asked how often they make purchases from their mobile devices, 40 percent said a couple times a month, 23 percent said once a week, 20 percent said a few times a year, and 10 percent said daily.

"PriceGrabber continues to see a dramatic surge in mobile shopping, with more consumers making purchases from their mobile devices," commented Graham Jones, general manager of PriceGrabber. "With the use of smartphones and tablet computers becoming increasingly common, consumers appear to be more readily embracing mobile as a go-to platform for shopping that can be easily accessed anywhere, anytime."

Consumers are downloading multiple shopping applications to their mobile devices

When tablet owners were asked if they had downloaded apps onto their mobile devices, 84 percent indicated that they had done so. PriceGrabber's survey found that on average, these consumers currently have 39 apps on their mobile devices, seven of which are shopping-related.

"Consumers are becoming savvier and approaching mobile shopping from every angle by downloading not just one, but a variety of shopping-related apps that can offer them everything from price drops to bar code scanning to coupons," added Jones. "We expect mobile shopping to be game-changing as consumers increasingly enact various strategies to find the best prices and retailers inevitably expand their mobile presence."