Mobile traffic to retail websites has overtaken desktop for the first time ever, rising to 52 per cent of all traffic.
The figures, from the latest IMRG Capgemini Quarterly Benchmarking Report, also show that mCommerce accounts for 36 per cent of UK eCommerce sales, rising to 40 per cent for clothing and apparel websites. Overall, of the total £24.2bn online retail spend for Q2, £8.7bn came from mobile devices.
The report also showed that tablets have had a major impact on these changing trends in online shopping, accounting for 82 per cent of sales completed on a mobile device.
Visitor bounce rates rose slightly from 25 per cent in Q1 to 28 per cent, but this is most likely due to the increase in mobile traffic. Checkout abandonment, which is consistently the source of most lost custom, was down to a record low of 27 per cent, from 36 per cent in Q1.
“With over half of all e-retail traffic now coming via smartphones and tablet devices, the latest Quarterly Benchmarking results reveal a huge landmark in the growth of mobile commerce,” said Tina Spooner, chief information officer at IMRG. “Considering that as recently as 2010 mobile visits to e-retail sites accounted for less than 3 per cent of traffic, this latest milestone represents staggering growth of 2,000 per cent over the past four years.
“These results clearly demonstrate that retailers’ investment in mobile optimisation is encouraging consumers to adopt mobile devices as a shopping platform.”
