A study on how US consumers use smart speakers finds 4 in 10 are engaging in some kind of shopping-related activities.
The report from eMarketer shows that users aren’t necessarily buying products with smart speakers, but more consumers are engaging in activity that eventually leads to a purchase.
When it comes to using smart speakers for shopping-related activity:
- 15% of users are browsing for products
- 15% of users are asking for product recommendations
- 12% of users add products to a shopping cart before checking out on another device.
EMarketer forecasts that 27% of users will buy something using a smart speaker at least once in 2019.
“We forecast that the number of US smart speaker users will top 77 million this year. With such a large percentage already engaging in shopping-related activities, smart speaker purchases have the potential to become a fast-growing trend.”
There’s still plenty of room for growth when it comes to making purchases with smart speakers, as 58% of US internet users have neither used nor are interested in using smart speakers to make purchases.
Only 4% of those surveyed said they made a purchase using a smart speaker at least once, and 2% said they did so regularly.
The future of smart speaker transactions does look promising, however, as 28% of respondents were at least somewhat interested in making purchases via smart speakers.
It seems like the greatest hurdle to overcome in this market is that most smart speakers do not offer a way for users to view products before purchasing.
Perhaps we’ll see an increase in transactions made on smart speakers as more devices like the Google Home Hub and Amazon Echo Show make their way into peoples’ homes.
