Do tablets inspire consumers to shop, or are tablet owners -- largely high-income, early adopters -- just big shoppers? A panel of "t-commerce" experts is currently debating the issue at OMMA's Tablet Revolution conference...

Tablets have interesting implications for retail: Derek Fridman, Creative Director, SapientNitro, says that when retailers equip sales associates with tablets, they have enabled "mixed sales," where customers buy an item in the store but then complete the purchase by ordering something online (which isn't necessarily available in the store).  All this is highly track-able, notes Fridman, and turns sales associates into "self-serve" points of purchase with both retail and e-commerce access. In addition to potentially boosting sales, that seems like it would be a boon for sales associates from the commissions perspective, especially if they get credit for online sales.

Members of the "T-Commerce" panel at OMMA Tablet Revolution say primetime for tablet shopping is in the evening when people are curling up on a couch at home. Desktop use tends to run during the workday from 6 am. to  6pm. By contrast, Chris Gonzalez, director, mobile product management, Gilt Groupe, says 8-11 pm is when people are firing up its apparel shopping app.

Consumers use their mobile devices in different ways at different times of day, according to panelists on the t-commerce panel at Tablet Revolution. Thus tablet use peaks in the 4-8 pm, according to Alex Schmelkin, President and Co-Founder, Alexander Interactive, who adds that the industry is trending towards delivering different kinds of content according to what time of day the user is accessing a Web site or mobile app.

If tablet users tend to be higher-end customers, do they need a higher level experience on tablets? Speaking on the tablet retail panel, Alex Schmelkin, president and co-founder, Alexander Interactive, sayd tablet should be as optimized as every other technology people are used to. As an example, he points out that Staples getting complaints about its new tablet offering being easy to shop but difficult to checkout. Oops. He stresses that any tablet initiative has to provide a seamless user experience all the way through.

A new word worthy of the dictionary -- at least in the digital business -- emerged at the Tablet Revolution event.

tablet-cated (or maybe table-cated) for tablet-educated  

The luxury online retail company is finding customers using tablets offer an increased conversion rate.

I love this comment from Chuck Martin at the beginning of his panel: "You can text a question from your laptop to my smartphone so we can talk about tablets."

There's a fine balance when it comes to integrating the tablet and TV-watching experiences, according to the panel on "TV Squared: Programming the Second Screen" at OMMA's Tablet Revolution. Dominique Nguyen, Director, Bravo Emerging Media, NBC Universal, warns that anything involving video content on the tablet probably won't be compatible for viewers; of course the subtext here is that tablet content risks distracting viewers from TV advertising, which would be self-defeating for a broadcaster like NBC. By the same token, Scott Rosenberg, Co-Founder & CEO, Umami, notes that tablets can help offset the threat to TV advertising posed by time-shifting, …