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There were record e-commerce sales over the past weekend, as more consumers shopped online. However, the rise of mobile commerce is the larger and more interesting story.
On Black Friday, mobile devices were responsible for roughly 36 percent of total revenues and a majority of online retail traffic, reported Adobe — this despite awkward and suboptimal mobile experiences across many sites.
According to Adobe’s data, mobile devices drove more retail site visits (55 percent) than the PC. Most of that was smartphones; only 10 percent of mobile visits came from tablets. Today, Cyber Monday, the company reports that mobile is responsible for 56 percent of site visits (46 percent from smartphones) and 38 percent of sales.
Adobe anticipates more than $3 billion in online sales today, with more than $500 million already booked by 10 a.m. US Eastern time. Mobile was responsible for more than $200 million of that total as of this morning.
Comscore reported that on Black Friday, 116 million people visited online retail sites: 90 million came from mobile devices and 52 million from desktop computers, while 26 million of the total used both.
Owners of iPhones were more prevalent and prominent among mobile shoppers, according to Criteo’s Black Friday analysis. The firm said that “iPhone user growth increased 59 percent vs. 18 percent for Android phone[s].” In addition, “iPhone transaction growth increased 58 percent vs. 27 percent for Android.”
In accordance with other sources, Criteo echoed that tablets were in decline, with Android tablet-based transactions down 25 percent year over year. Transactions from iPads were down by 12 percent.
Separately, Hooklogic found that the value of mobile and desktop shopping carts was comparable. However, the PC continues to lead in overall conversions, as mentioned. This is generally not because consumers are inhibited about mobile buying; it’s because user experiences are still mediocre for the most part.
As a focus group of one, I did most of my shopping over the weekend on Android and iPhone. I was on a Mac only a fraction of the time. Much of this resulted from clicking on email-based promotions and then shopping on the corresponding websites on my phone. I found poor site experiences to be the rule rather than the exception. Apps are generally much better.
Though still challenging, browsing and buying on mobile sites is getting better. And the identified gap between mobile traffic and conversions argues m-commerce would (and will) eclipse the PC as mobile user experiences improve.
