A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog about people using their smartphones in ways I’ve never seen before during a key shopping trip, namely comparison shopping by taking pictures of barcodes. And since I witnessed that on more than one occasion, I figured this must be taking off. So I did some research yesterday figuring that since the holidays are over, some articles and/or research would have been written on this.
Sure enough, I found some research that showed people are using their phones for comparison shopping. This Mobile Commerce Daily report shows that people are using their phones quite a bit for comparison shopping. Actually more people use their phones for comparison shopping before they enter a store, according to this report. I’m guessing this gap will close as people get more comfortable with using their phones to take pictures of barcodes inside the store. 
But people are also using their phones for more as Smartphones become more embedded into the daily fabric of peoples’ lives. According to this article from Mike Swift of MercuryNews.com, PayPal also saw a huge jump in payments made with mobile devices during the holiday season, expecting about $700M in mobile payments for all of 2010. While still less than 10% of PayPal’s total volume, it’s growing quickly according to this article. This makes sense since PayPal is a good way to pay quickly without having to put in all your credit card information.
