What does the iPad mean for your business?

Have you played with an iPad yet? Better yet, did you buy one?

I’ve had mine for just a couple of months, but the more I use it, the more I realize how important devices like this are. When Steve Jobs announced it as “a magical device,” many people assumed he was referring to its features and functionality – if they didn’t think it was hype. But it really is magical.

Why?

3 big reasons:

1. iPads provide real, honest-to-goodness, mobile internet. Everywhere. Or at least as “everywhere” as AT&T is. Which is still better than nothing. While this is just a “features and functionality” point, it leads to number 2…
2. The iPad changes consumer behavior. Which behaviors? More page views. Longer time on site. More time watching video. Oh, and this next little nugget…
3. Consumers buy more when using it. You know me. I like numbers. And I’ve got ’em. According to an executive at Kenneth Cole, purchases via iPad are worth 20% more than the average mobile buy. To say nothing of conversion rates. My own experience supports this, too. As bullish as I am on mobile generally, when it comes to commerce, the device clearly matters.

I often rave about the mobile web and how much mobile phones have changed behavior. And they have. For instance, according to Forrester Research, 17% of consumers have smart phones and a similar number use the mobile web regularly. Those numbers leap to 23% and 37% (!), respectively, for younger demographics – or, as I like to think of them, next year’s customers.

But the iPad – and its coming competition from Blackberry, Samsung and others – will put these numbers to shame. Every data point already shows it.

More to the point, your customers are buying iPads. And will probably buy a fair number of its various competitors, too (though don’t ask me to predict which ones. I didn’t think the iPad was a winner when I first heard about it). But the iPad is clearly popular, so much so that it may be hurting notebook sales Heck, Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn may – or may not – have said the iPad “…cannibalized sales… by as much as 50%.”

All this means the mobile web will continue to grow. As will mobile commerce. And the iPad – or something that looks a lot like it – increasingly drives that reality. And if changing reality isn’t magical, what is?

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