Buoyant retail sales driven by mobile shopping frenzy
Shopping data out of the US following the holiday weekend shows a country of frenzied consumers hitting the sales. For all the economic doldrums, Americans leapt into their Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping ritual with real fervour this year.
While retail foot traffic was up and cash registers were merrily ringing, a big chunk of the shopping frenzy came from ecommerce sites. Given the consumer shift to mobile everything, not surprisingly shoppers using mobile devices like smartphones and iPads accounted for more of the purchases than ever before.
As part of its Smarter Commerce initiative, IBM released some interesting data on online spending over the holiday weekend. Its online retail benchmark study revealed that online Thanksgiving Day spending had jumped by more than 39%. Meanwhile Black Friday online sales increased by more than 24% compared to the same period last year.
The study also uncovers the arrival of mobile deal seekers on Black Friday. These savvy mobile shoppers exploited their devices as a research tool for both in-store and online bargains. Traffic originating from mobile devices increased to 14.3% on Black Friday this year compared to 5.6% in 2010 as sales from mobile devices surged to account for 9.8% of total online sales.
Shoppers using the iPad led to more retail purchases more often per visit than other mobile devices. Conversion rates for iPad users reached 4.6% compared to 2.8% for all mobile devices. Indeed collectively iPhone and iPad shoppers accounted for 10.2% of all online retail traffic on Black Friday while Android users represented 4.1%.
Elsewhere, mobile shopping data from eBay and PayPal over the shopping weekend corroborate IBM’s findings. eBay said shoppers in the US purchased nearly two and a half times as many items via eBay Mobile this Black Friday compared to 2010. While PayPal Mobile announced a five-fold increase in global mobile payment volume on Thanksgiving and a six-fold increase on Cyber Monday this year when compared to the same time last year.
While all this is US data, I think it has real relevance for the Australian market. The US is obviously having a tougher economic time than we are over here, but Australians are heavy users of their mobile devices and have taken to mobile shopping with gusto.
Indeed some industry commentators are proclaiming that the figures suggest the true advent of the post-PC era. For retailers here in Australia, this means providing an optimal customer experience across multiple channels, and creating a seamless experience on mobile.
And it’s not simply a matter of shoppers turning to websites to avoid crowded shopping malls. Australians are increasingly using smartphones as they shop in physical shopping strips. While mobile phones are being used to both research and purchase items, many consumers are actually using their mobile phone as they look at the product in a physical store. Australian consumers love the convenience of mobile to find the best deals from wherever they are.
Sales driven by mobile will undoubtedly play a major role in festive holiday shopping. Whether you’re in a position to capitalise on this trend will depend on how you use mobile technology to interact and engage with your customers.
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