Dive Brief:
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Content blocker Crystal, the top paid iOS app on the Apple’s app store right now, and similar apps interfere with loading of retail shopping sites on mobile devices, according to a recent Fortune investigation.
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According to the CEO of Branding Brand Chris Mason, who was interviewed by Fortune, shoppers may not even realize that the content blocker is the reason that product images and purchase paths are broken on some retailers' websites.
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Unless retailers quickly come up with workarounds or the ad blockers allow for opt-outs or exceptions, the situation could be bad for holiday shopping on smartphones and for retailers’ data-collection efforts.
Dive Insight:
Fortune’s Dan Primack tested out Crystal and revealed a seemingly unintended consequence of ad blockers, a new feature for iPhones and a regular feature of many Android phones: They make browsing and shopping on many retail sites virtually impossible on mobile phones.
“This upcoming holiday season… content-blockers are going to cause a lot of problems,” Mason told Primack. “First, the experience for customers will be lessened. Lots of sites will be missing content, have broken links or customers won’t be able to add certain items to their shopping carts. They’ll probably just think the site is broken, but it’s really their content blocker. Second, retailers will be data-blind, or at least data-dark. It will really impact their ability to make quick judgments.”
Primack found that pages couldn’t load, images went missing, shopping carts didn’t function, and/or links were broken at the mobile sites of Sears, Wal-Mart Stores, Lululemon, Bass Pro Shops, and others.
"Did you download an ad-blocking app?" Primack writes. "Good luck buying stuff online."