NEW YORK ? Tablets will be the next wave of mobile devices to drive conversion for brands, according to an executive from Resource Interactive at the NRF 101st Annual Convention & Expo.

The executive spoke during the ?Designing with the tablet consumer in mind? session and spoke about the growing need for marketers to include tablet-specific products to their mobile strategy. The session also looked at how tablets are being used in the home.

?Tablets are proving to be conversion engine for mobile instead of smartphones,? said Stephen Burke, vice president of mobile at Resource Interactive, Columbus, OH.

?Tablets are increasingly being used as an additional device for mobile consumers instead of a replacement for a smartphone or laptop,? he said.

Tab into stats
To back up Mr. Burke?s point that tablets are increasingly being used for shopping, the executive used several bundles of recent mobile statistics that point to tablet commerce.

Online retailer eBay recently announced that it predicts to do $8 billion in mobile commerce transactions in 2012, which is up from their estimated $5 billion in 2011.

IBM also reported that mobile made up 7 percent of total sales on Christmas Day, and 6 percent of all online sales on Dec. 26.

Additionally, tablets are being used for shopping differently than other devices, per the executive.

A study from the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri found that 22 percent of tablet owners say shopping is the leading activity on their devices.

?Shoppers on tablets buy and browse more often and it is used for learning about products in more detail,? Mr. Burke said.

?I see every mobile stat out there moving up and to the right this year,? he said.

Additionally, Mr. Burke envisions ereaders as being a gateway drug to tablet dependence with consumers increasingly phasing out their laptops and desktops for more at-home activities that tablets are suited for.

Based on eBay?s projected mobile numbers in addition to similar projections from Amazon, mobile commerce in the United States is on the fast track.

?If you take those two giants predictions in mind, the U.S. market will surpass Japan as the largest mobile commerce market in the world,? Mr. Burke said.

?We are on the cusp of leading the world,? he said.

Leading by example
Mr. Burke also used recent examples of tablet-specific work to show what is possible with the devices.

For example, clothing retailer Anthropologie recently launched an iPad app that lets shoppers aggregate their favorite items into one spot similar to a mood board where they can purchase items directly.

According to Mr. Burke, Anthropologie is predicting that 20 percent of its online sales from 2012 will come via tablets, showing the increased need from retailers to develop mobile products for their consumers.

As another example, Mr. Burke used Sherwin Williams, which transitioned its ColorSnap iPhone app to iPad devices.

Mr. Burke outlined four major areas that brands need to think about when making tablet apps ? engaging, shoppable, shareable and extendable.

By engaging, Mr. Burke means that an app should be tactile and should tie tablet content to more traditional marketing channels, including television and print advertising, to create a full 360-degree marketing strategy.

Every aspect of a retailer?s tablet apps must be commerce-enabled to seamlessly flow into the company?s digital work.

Tablets are naturally a device that can be shared between people, so it is important to connect content with social media sites.

Additionally, tablets will be combined with new technologies this year to increase user engagement, per Mr. Burke.

Augmented reality will be an especially hot trend that will let consumers personalize their tablet apps and experiences.

For 2012, the executive revealed that Resource Interactive will begin dabbling in more mobile Web activity, which is also a growing area of mobile and needs to be used in conjunction with apps.

?The new challenge is figuring out how to take advantage of all the assets and tie it in new ways,? Mr. Burke said.

?We are still in the relatively early stages of figuring tablets out, but in the next two years there will be a renaissance of new creative capabilities with the tablet,? he said.