A new Adobe Digital Insights report showed that smartphones played a considerable role in online shopping.
Mobile commerce sales came to just over $24 billion throughout the holiday shopping season this year. In fact, Adobe Digital Insights data showed that smartphones and tablets brought in that amount from November 1 through December 24.
That doesn’t include online purchases made over mobile devices at the last moment before Christmas.
Among all the mobile commerce sales this holiday season, smartphones were behind the vast majority. In fact, 68 percent of m-commerce purchases came from smartphones. Tablets were responsible for the remaining 32 percent. This represents a shift in usage as it looks as though people are now leaning toward their phones when they previously preferred the larger screened mobile devices.
Retail mobile commerce sales from smartphones brought in $16.63 billion, with $7.92 billion from tablets.
During the holiday shopping period, mobile devices were used for 31 percent of online retail sales, said the Adobe Digital Insights data. The remaining 69 percent of online purchases from retailers was through laptops and desktops. Last year, mobile shoppers represented 28 percent of purchases and in 2014, they made 19 percent of the purchases.
Adobe Digital Insights analysts predict that m-commerce will continue to take on a rising share of online sales. In fact, they stated that it is likely that this trend would have kicked in as early as the winding down of the holiday season. The reason is that from December 21 onward, many people were attending holiday functions and were more likely to have a smartphone in hand than to be seated at a work computer.
The report pointed out that the current mobile shopping experience still involves a certain degree of friction. This is primarily the result of the increased challenges involved in filling in purchase forms online. That said, it also underscored the fact that a growing number of retailers are working on improving that experience.
Retail mobile commerce sales could greatly benefit from the reduction of that friction. Some retailers are looking into options such as payment card information capture through the device camera, for example.
The main reasons that shoppers in all age categories are looking to their smartphones in order to help them to get through their gift buying this holiday season include: discovering opportunities to save through digital coupons and promo codes for nearby stores; to find those store locations; and to compare the prices for the same product from one store to the next.