How mobile is changing the way we sell each Christmas

Let the data help you drive your business and decision making. We’re going to be throwing you a fair few stats in this blog, but it is important for all retailers and wholesalers – like yourselves – to know and understand the numbers so you can develop your business and marketing strategies for 2015.

While you probably don’t have much time in the next week or so for planning, we hope you will digest the contents of this post and think about how you can futher optimise your online store for the next holiday season. Let’s get started.

 

Down to the numbers

As you all know, buyer behaviour is in a perpetual state of change. According to digital analytics company comScore, US ecommerce is expected to grow to $61 billion, out of which the share of mobile is expected to be $7.9 billion, a 25% growth over last year.^[1]Growth of mobile commerce (m-commerce) is expected to outpace the entire industry by 9%, while it outpaces desktop ecommerce growth rate by 11%.

Those numbers are specific to the US market, however, the growth of online and mobile commerce over the rest of the world has been on a rise as well. As of June 2014, Australian ecommerce market grew to $A15.6 billion, an 8.6% growth over the last year.^[2]

According to the latest ACMA report, 76% of Australians accessed the internet via mobile in May 2014. Furthermore, 68% of Australians are accessing the internet via three or more different devices.

 

What this all means

These facts paint a very clear picture: if your ecommerce store is not optimised for mobile, you are likely losing a large share of potential customers online. In fact, the damage doesn’t merely stop there.

Even as far as three years ago, Google’s research showed that 61% of users were unlikely to return to a mobile site that they had trouble accessing from their phones. Not only does this mean that mobile users would not buy from your store, but also that over 60% of these users would likely never return to your store in the future and 40% would move on to a competitor.

If that was true three years ago, you can imagine how much more important mobile has become today considering that mobile commerce grew 448% in Australia between December 2010 and 2013.^[3]

 

Mobile is changing the way people spend money

Mobile isn’t just making people pull out their wallets these days – it is now becoming the wallet itself. Large internet companies including Google and Apple have incorporated functionality in their phones that allow people to make online and in-store payments with a few taps.

Mobile payments are still in their infancy but this trend is only going to gather momentum as more app developers and retailers adopt the system.

 

Prepare your business for the holidays

With market leaders projecting an increase in online spending, your store will soon be experiencing its effects if it hasn’t already. If you’re looking for some ideas to capitalise on this holiday rush, check out our blog post Easy ways to turbo charge your store’s 2014 Christmas sales.