The report on the role of retail channels in consumer mobile purchases found that Dutch buyers most often go to the operator-owned shops and operator websites to find information on what’s available, as well as make their final purchase.
While consumers find the independent telecom retailers (Phone House, t for Telecom and Belcompany) useful for finding information on telecom products or new telecom services, they are less likely to use the independent channels to purchase a new prepaid or postpaid connection.
Telecompaper’s latest research report, “Retail channels during the orientation and purchase process of mobile telecom”, is based on 630 online interviews of mobile consumers aged 18 years and older. All respondents had purchased a mobile connection themselves, for private use within the last 12 months.
The research shows that consumers most often turn to the internet, followed by shops, to look around for a new prepaid or postpaid connection. Of those who go to shops to find out about a new connection, 71.5 percent use the mobile operators’ own shops, while 51.9 percent use the shops of independent telecom retailers like the Phone House, t for Telecom and Belcompany.
Of those who use the internet to get information about mobile telecom, more than half (55.4%) use the mobile operators’ websites, while 23.4 percent use the website of an independent telecom retailer.
Consumers are just as likely to use shops as the internet when it comes to making the final purchase. Of all the mobile users that bought a new postpaid or prepaid connection within the last 12 months, 43.0 percent made their purchase in a shop and 42.1 percent bought online.
The research shows that operator-owned shops and websites are important sales channels, and Telecompaper expects this to remain the case in the future.
While the shops of independent telecom retailers are used by around one in four consumers (27.3%) to purchase a new mobile connection, the independent retailers’ websites were used by only 5.3 percent of respondents making their final purchase online, suggesting a more limited role for the independent distributors.
