Retailers are reporting promising results from the holiday shopping weekend
The most significant retail holiday in the United States, Black Friday, has come and gone and many retailers saw a spike in total sales thanks to mobile commerce. Wal-Mart reported that it experienced the best three-day online shopping period it has seen in recent history and the company’s experience is being echoed by others that have adopted a focus on the digital space. According to a report from comScore, e-commerce sales throughout the United States surpassed $1 billion for the first time.
Total retail sales are lower this year than they were in 2013
While more people are shopping online, especially from their mobile devices, the retail sector has encountered some turbulence this year. Total retail sales for the holiday shopping weekend were down this year when compared to the results of 2013, according to the National Retail Federation. Many consumers opted to avoid physical stores in favor of mobile and e-commerce, while others opted to avoid holiday shopping altogether. The exact reasons behind lower retail sales this year and not entirely clear.
E-commerce is thriving among consumers interested in convenient shopping solutions
The report from comScore notes that consumers are shopping more from their personal computers and mobile devices. The report shows that shopping from a PC increased by 32% on Thanksgiving Day and 26% on Black Friday. Throughout November, purchases made from desktop computers rose by 15%. The report suggests that mobile commerce accounted for approximately 2% of all digital sales made during the holiday shopping weekend.
Mobile commerce has helped some retailers find success
The report also shows that e-commerce spending reached $1.009 billion this year, higher than the $766 million reported last year. Shopping online has become quite popular among consumers because of the convenience that it offers. When shopping at home from a computer, consumers can avoid the chaotic crowds that flock to retail stores on Black Friday. This convenience can also be found through mobile commerce, which allows people to purchase the products they are interested in at any time, no matter where they may be.
Of all of the purchases that were made over the internet, 3 in 10 came from smartphones and tablets.
Thanksgiving and Black Friday brought must-have and can’t-miss deals to consumers across the United States and mobile commerce brought a higher proportion of sales than ever before among all of the purchases that were made online.
Smartphones and tablets were used more than ever before on those two days, according to Adobe.
The latest data published by that company showed that almost 1 out of every 3 purchases that were made on Thanksgiving Day and on Black Friday occurred over mobile commerce. This means that this year more than ever before, consumers had been turning to their smartphones and tablets to browse, discover deals, and actually buy what they found.
The mobile commerce data from Adobe was revealed in its 2014 Digital Index Online Shopping report.
That data suggested that on Thanksgiving Day, 29 percent of sales that took place online occurred over smartphones and tablets. This was an increase from last year’s proportion, which had been 21 percent. At the same time, 27 percent of Black Friday online sales occurred over m-commerce which was an increase over the data from 2013, which was 24 percent.
Smartphones, specifically, traditionally make up a smaller number of the sales that are generated over mobile. This year, they made up 13 percent of the online purchases. That said, this was still a doubling over the figure from last year, which was 7 percent. Tablets made up 16 percent of all online sales during this same period of time, which was a much smaller rise from having been 14 percent, last year.
The data that has been released by Adobe mirrors that of IBM, which came out over the weekend, indicating that 79 percent of sales over mobile commerce came from iOS users. This represented over four times more m-commerce sales than those from Android users, which represented 21 percent. Equally, though, while Android’s share of mobile sales climbed when compared to last year, iOS fell, revealing that while Apple still has a massive lead, it is starting to shrink.
