Tablet Use for Online Shopping Growing in Popularity

Tablets and Smartphones are fast becoming the devices of choice for online shopping, with Apple’s iPad and iPhone leading the way.
Use of the traditional desktop and laptop browsers dipped from 92.33 percent in 2011 to 81.60 percent this year as use of Smartphones and tablets more than doubled, e-commerce solutions provider Monetate found. In the third quarter, tablets made up 8.37 percent of all website visits, up from 3.16 percent in 2011, while Smartphones surged to 10.03 percent from 4.51 percent.
“Total shopping sessions in one year from tablets has increased 161 percent while traffic from Smartphones has increased an equally impressive 119 percent,” the report reads. “Understanding the users of these devices is critical to developing relevant customer segments and making website personalization a significant part of your business.”
Monetate, whose findings are based on samples from more than 100 retailers, also discovered the iPad accounted for 88.94 percent of all website visits originating from tablets. Android devices were a distant second at 6.34 percent and the Kindle Fire placed third with 4.71 percent.
When it comes to Smartphones, the iPhone was leader of the pack with 60.85 percent. Android-based phones accounted for 37.59 percent of traffic while Windows Phone made up only 0.91 percent of all visits.
When it comes to conversion rates, tablets were almost neck-and-neck with traditional computing, with 3.12 percent of visits actually turning into a sale. The iPad’s conversion rate was 3.17 percent, compared to 3.19 percent for Android tablets.
Success for retail sites largely depends on how a potential customer interacts, or fails to interact, with the website’s design.
“It’s critical to ensure websites are optimized for mobile traffic,” the report states. “Organize your products into groups or categories to make it easier for Smartphone users to navigate a large catalog. Ensure critical functions (e.g., navigation, site search, checkout) work as well as they do on a desktop website, and that product photos render properly on Smartphones.”
To download the complete report by Monetate, click here.

Post from: SiteProNews

Best Buy Enters the Tablet Fray

A new player is entering the tablet market next month.
Best Buy Co. Inc. will launch the Android-based “Insignia Flex,” for $239 to $259, a source told Reuters this week.

The Insignia Flex, which was revealed on Facebook last week, will hit stores Nov. 11 and be sold only at Best Buy.

The tablet, featuring Android 4.0 ICS, will have a dual-core 1GHz processor, a 9.7-inch screen and a 10-hour battery life, the Facebook page revealed. Reuters’ source also indicated it will feature a camera for video conferencing and weigh in at about 1.45 pounds.
Best Buy will continue to sell rival devices, the source told Reuters, because the retailer wants to be known as a destination for tablets.

The Insignia Flex will compete with Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD tablet, Google’s Nexus 7, and a raft of other Android tablets from Google and Samsung. Apple’s iPad mini tablet is to be launched Oct. 23.
Best Buy’s tablet will monetarily undermine entry-level models of Apple’s iPad ($499) and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 2 ($399). The Insignia Flex will be comparable price-wise to the seven-inch Galaxy Tab ($250) and the iPad Mini, which is likely to start at $250 to $300.
Best buy’s decision to enter the tablet market may be a desperate attempt to better compete with its online rivals Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Microsoft.
The 1,400–store chain has reported severely diminished earnings: $33 million in the third-quarter, an 87 percent drop from the same quarter in 2011.

Free Applications for touchpad tablet

Here are some free Apps for touchpad

1. HP App Catalog
   
   
   The HP App Catalog, like other mobile app stores, lets you look at the most recent or most popular apps, as well as search by category.

1. TouchPad App List
   
   
   To find TouchPad apps in the App Catalog, look for the little gray words "For TouchPad" next to the name of each app. The last two apps in the list here don't have 'em; those are Palm Pre apps that can run on the TouchPad, but in a smaller window. You can’t scale them up to full size, like you can do with the iPad’s 2x button.
2. Angry Birds HD (Free)
   
   
   
   In 2011, Angry Birds is the sign that your mobile platform has made it. Angry Birds HD for the TouchPad is smooth, free, and plays in full screen. If you become a real addict, though, you'll have to shell out $1.99 for Angry Birds Rio HD.
   
3. Facebook (Free)
   
   
   
   The TouchPad is only the second tablet with a dedicated Facebook app. And HP's app implementation is impressive, with several unique features, including this Flipboard-like full screen view of your news feed. A two-pane interface lets you flip easily between your news feed, messages, events, places, friends and photos, and the places where your friends checked in show up on a map.
   
4. Amazon Kindle (Free)
   
   
   
   What's a tablet without a Kindle app? There isn't much to the TouchPad's version yet, but it syncs with your existing Kindle library and lets you search for text, mark pages, and check your notes. There's also a link to the Web-based Kindle store, but when I checked it before launch, it wasn't working.
   
5. Spaz HD Beta Preview 1 (Free)
   
   
   
   Spaz was my favorite Twitter client on the Pre 2, and it's back on the TouchPad with a vastly expanded feature set. You can skim through multiple search columns, log in as multiple Twitter accounts, use different image hosting and URL shortcut services and, of course, Tweet. It's all the Twitter you'd want on this tablet.
   
6. TuneIn Radio (Free)
   
   
   Without Pandora, Slacker or Last.fm around, this is the best streaming music app for the TouchPad so far. TuneIn automatically gathers all of the streams for radio stations in your city, arranging them along a virtual AM/FM spectrum; if you want to go farther afield, you can browse a global directory of streams by topic.
   
7. Typewriter Beta (Free)
   
   
   An ingenious, and good-looking text processor for the TouchPad, Typewriter uses e-mail-like formatting conventions (for instance, “_italic_” and “[hotlink]” to create elegant documents. You can save your files to Dropbox, email them, or just save them on the TouchPad to transfer over later via USB. I'd like to see more features, such as spell check and find-and-replace, but this is a good start.
   
8. Spaz HD Beta Preview 1 (Free)
   
   
   
   
   So far the only weather app designed especially for the TouchPad, WeatherBug opens up with a virtual window showing you a recent picture of your location, which is pretty neat. Beyond that, you get forecasts, wind speed and direction, and radar images. Oddly, it throws traffic in there, too. WeatherBug uses the TouchPad's real estate well, but it's missing some of the more in-depth scenarios and advice you find on major weather sites, like recommendations on what to wear, allergy reports, or whether the weather is suitable for various activities.