An Adobe report has indicated that mobile shopping could be a great deal more but retailers are holding back.
While retail m-commerce has been moving forward, according to Adobe, it could be doing a great deal better. The firm’s data from Europe showed that traffic to retailer sites isn’t reaching its potential.
Europe saw an increase of 54 percent year over year in its mobile retail traffic from smartphones.
Adobe published its European retail m-commerce data in its 2016 Mobile Retail Report. Beyond traffic, smartphone based shopping has also led to an 89 percent increase in its revenue growth since last year. This is far greater than the increase in revenue growth experienced via desktop – at 8 percent – and tablets – at 10 percent.
Still, as much as the growth in revenues is significant, mobile commerce conversions aren’t nearly great enough to balance the slipping growth rates in the use of tablets and desktops. Europe saw a consistent increase in smartphone traffic throughout Europe. However, the average retailer experienced very little overall online traffic growth.
The boost in retail m-commerce isn’t actually driving up the use of online shopping overall.
On average, European retailers saw a year over year traffic increase of only 3 percent when taking all channels into account. Tablet traffic slid by 8 percent and desktop traffic fell by 7 percent. The smartphone growth rate was by far the highest but it was not adequate to make up for what was lost over other devices.
That said, the online retail revenue growth rate was healthy at 13 percent over last year. This was primarily built on the foundation of desktop purchases, which continue to represent the vast majority of online purchases.
Desktops brought in 74 percent of total online revenue, despite the fact that they represent a notably lower 58 percent of traffic. Clearly, the conversion rate over desktop is significantly higher than over other devices.
Smartphone retail m-commerce represented 12 percent of total online revenue but 27 percent of the traffic to retail sites across Europe. The average order value over desktop was also far greater than over smartphones. In that area, desktop outperformed smartphones by a sizeable 25 percent.
Consumers are finding that mcommerce was alright for a date or two but seem less interested in a long term relationship.
According to a recent study, many consumers have now tried mobile commerce and are starting to become disenchanted with its frustrating, slow, clunky, and tiny experience.
Some analysts are now wondering if mcommerce could have been a fad and that larger screens could come back.
Evidence of this was revealed in research conducted by PwC U.S. Retail & Consumer practice. What they found was that when it comes to the way that shoppers now feel about mobile commerce, it seems that they are starting to see the experience as old news and that it was more a matter of hype and novelty than actual practical convenience. Many consumers find that the screens on their smartphones are simply too small to comfortably shop and that the mcommerce website experience provided by retailers is just too clunky.
Instead of mobile commerce, many consumers are now returning to their laptops and desktops.
The report issued based on the study used responses from 15,000 online shoppers worldwide. The conclusions drawn from this data are that retailers will need to step out beyond the attempt to simply make sure that they have an omnichannel presence to ensure that they are actually meeting the growing expectations of their customers. It also pointed out that while shoppers are increasingly open to using their smartphones and tablets to compare and to buy, they are also rapidly becoming disenchanted with the experience once they do give it a try.
Among the American respondents in the study, 37 percent said that the concerns over security are preventing them from using their smartphones for making a purchase. Another 33 percent said that the screen is simply too small, while 32 percent said that they don’t actually own a mobile device.
The advice that was given by the report was that many retailers might actually be better served by giving up on expanding their push for mobile commerce platforms and placing a greater focus on what their shoppers actually want. It isn’t that the report claims that there is no future for mcommerce. In fact, they stated that consumers see multichannel shopping as a given. However, the complexities and cost of this experience are proving to be too great for many retailers and have yet to offer adequate rewards. For the sake of survival and current success, some businesses may be better off placing a far better focus on what they know actually works.
