Author: BWild

Mobile shopping results in fewer page views

| February 3, 2016

A recent report has shown that retailers are struggling to boost site use among smartphone based shoppers.

Though it may seem quite easy to applaud the growth of mobile shopping and to feel that it is simple to hop on board and offer people a great m-commerce experience, provided that the site is smartphone-friendly, retailers are discovering that customer habits make things more challenging than anticipated.

Among the main problems is that shoppers are less likely to browse around when they use mobile devices.

A recent study, conducted by SimilarWeb, found that people using mobile shopping are viewing a smaller number of pages per site visit. Last year, the average online shopper using a desktop or a laptop viewed an average of 8.3 pages per site visit. That said, the average shopper using m-commerce channels such as smartphones and tablets saw only 5.8 pages. When it comes to trying to encourage people to add more to their carts, that represents a considerable reduction in opportunity for retailers.

The research also found that mobile shopping cuts down on the length of time of the visit, as well.

Mobile Shopping - TabletSimilarWeb determined that when shopping over desktop or laptop, people would browse around for an average of 6 minutes and 50 seconds on a retail site in 2015. However, when using mobile devices, that length of time fell considerably, plummeting to only 4 minutes and 29 seconds.

According to the firm’s digital insights manager, Pavel Tuchinsky, “Engagement and time on site has not been maintained in the transition toward mobile shopping.” That said, Tuchinsky also felt that there was a solution to this challenge. He explained that “Retailers must continue to embrace the rapid change towards mobile, including better checkout flows, and integration between desktop and mobile sites.”

It is no mystery that mobile shopping is becoming exceptionally important to shoppers. In the United States, it’s estimated that about 55.8 percent of all retail site visits came from users of smartphones and tablets in 2015. It will be up to retailers to try to keep on top of these trends and to better understand what their customers want if they intend to stay ahead in online sales.

Mobile phones are used for internet access by half the Chinese population

| January 28, 2016

According to a recent report, approximately 620 million people in China use smartphone to go online.

A new official report from the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) has said that around 620 million people in the country – about half of its population – use their mobile phones in order to access the web.

These figures were collected throughout last year and represented the statistics as of the end of December 2015.

This figure represents an increase of 63.03 million users of mobile phones for accessing the internet, last year. It is also a figure that represents about 90.1 percent of the total number of internet users in China, which is estimated to be 688 million. This helps to further illustrate the importance of mobile devices as a driver in the internet user population in China. Smartphones have allowed the country to achieve the highest internet using population in the world, by far, said the CNNIC.

That said, it is important to note that the users of those mobile phones experience the same online restrictions.

Mobile Phone Use in ChinaThe Chinese government imposes strict controls over the content that is permitted online. Despite the fact that e-commerce is among the core components of its efforts to convert its economy into one that is more consumer demand based, these regulations remain. In fact, the system currently in place has been called the “Great Firewall of China”, blocking out any content it has determined to be politically sensitive.

The CNNIC report showed that there are about 127 million people in China whose internet access is exclusively over mobile phones. Broad efforts have been made within the country in order to help to boost the internet coverage and, as a result, public services, the standard of living and e-commerce have all benefitted.

The statistics offered by the report have predicted that the number of people who are using mobile health, mobile wallets or online education over smartphones had reached the 152 million, 358 million and 110 million mark, respectively, last year. Furthermore, an estimated 96.6 million people in the country – that is, one in every 14 people in China – used a mobile device in order to call a cab in 2015.