Tag: m-commerce growth

When compared to a year ago at the same time, mobile shopping increased by nearly a third in the first quarter.

According to the latest IBM Online Retail Index research data, m-commerce has experienced a growth by nearly a third (31 percent) in the first quarter of 2013, when compared to its size at the same time in 2012.

The report pointed out that the growing use of tablets and customer service improvements were primary drivers.

The index states that at the moment, m-commerce is making up 17.4 percent of all online retail sales. This is a notable increase over where it was a year prior, at 13.3 percent. On the whole, spending online, in general, had increased by 20 percent within that same quarter. The index found that tablets are playing an ever increasing role as a driver of shopping over mobile.

They said that m-commerce has become more comfortable as people use iPads and other tablets.

The overall m-commerce traffic, including all devices, rose by 40 percent in the first quarter of 2013. However, among tablets, specifically, there was an increase of almost 80 percent when compared to the same time last year.

The report pointed out that “This trend reflects marketers’ ability to create a positive customer experience for consumers shopping on their iPads and Kindles, by designing for the finger and making it easier for customers to browse via their mobile devices.” The results presented in this report align quite closely with other similar research that is also pointing to tablets in their growing importance for m-commerce.

Earlier in 2013, there was a forecast issued by eMarketer which stated that transactions over tablets made up 57 percent of the almost $25 billion that occurred over m-commerce in 2012. Based on that, they expected the figure to rise to reach 62.5 percent in 2013. This is also interesting as the penetration of tablets is at less than half of that of smartphones. Tablets are currently owned by approximately 20 percent of people in the United States, whereas it is believed that more than 50 percent are already the owners of smartphones.

Final quarter data has now revealed that nearly a quarter of its online sales were over mobile devices.

QVC has become the latest believer in the success available through m-commerce as it saw an exceptionally strong performance over that channel in the last quarter of 2012.

This represented an increase of 60 percent in its sales over smartphones and tablets.

The QVC parent company, Liberty Interactive Corp., which was listed in the seventh place among the Top 500 for 2012 as identified by Internet Retailer, saw a considerable year end on December 31. According to the statistics included in its recently released report, its revenue had increased overall by 4.2 percent, bringing its total to $10.01 billion. This was an increase over its 2011 total of $9.61 billion.

While QVC saw its overall web performance rise, it was m-commerce that became the true star last year.

The American web sales for the company rose by approximately 10.9 percent, reaching $2.23 billion, when compared to the $2.01 billion from the year before. Its international web sales were not broken down by channel within this report. It did note that its total sales increased by 2.9 percent to $8.51 billion when compared to 2011’s $8.27 billion. Its international sales were up by just shy of that amount, 2.4 percent, reaching $2.93 billion from having been $2.86 billion the year before.

Forty percent of QVC’s American sales for the year were the result of online shoppers, which was a year over year rise of 37.1 percent. In the last quarter, online sales represented 42.7 percent of the total, which was a big jump from the 39.7 percent in the last quarter of 2011.

Where things were truly explosive, though, were in m-commerce in the last quarter. The sales in that channel grew by 109.3 percent in 2012 to reach $175.6 million. In 2011, that figure had been $83.9 million. Last year the mobile sales made up 22.6 percent of all of the online purchases, which was a tremendous leap over the 11.8 percent that they represented in 2011.

Clearly, 2012 was a defining year for m-commerce at QVC, which is bound to continue to push through this channel throughout 2013.