Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen an inexorable rise in the use of mobile devices for commerce, including price comparisons, stock checking, product feature research, and actually purchasing.

Now new research has shown that mobile has truly reached the “tipping point” for mobile commerce in the UK, with over 50% of traffic to retail sites coming from mobile devices.

And what’s more, over 1/3 of all online purchases are now made over mobile as well!

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IMRG (Interactive Media in Retail Group) is the UK’s industry association for e-retail, and in conjunction with consultancy Capgemini they sponsor a quarterly benchmarking report on the retail industry.

The study ran from May through July 2014, and was based upon information from some 40 retailers, including Addict, Airport Parking & Hotels, B&Q, Bank, Blacks, Brora, Cartridge People, Clarks, Crocus, Debenhams, Deckers, Dune, Dunelm Mill, Freeman Grattan Holdings (Freemans, Grattan, Look Again, Kaleidoscope, Curvissa, Swimear365, Witt International UK), Get The Label, Hobbs, Home & Cook, JD Sports, John Lewis, LK Bennett, M and M Direct, Marks & Spencer, Matalan, Millets, Moss Bros, New Look, Philip Kingsley, Schuh, Scott, Silentnight, Size, Sparkling Strawberry, Super GA, The Body Shop, The White Company & This is Pulp.

Overall, 52% of the traffic to retail sites came from a mobile device, either a smartphone or a tablet. Tina Spooner, chief information officer at IMRG commented “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.”

In addition, the study found that over 1/3 (36%) of online purchases were made over mobile. For retailers in clothing and apparel, the figure was over 40%.

With the total UK online sales reaching just over £24 billion (about US$40 billion) for the months May, June, and July, sales using smartphones and tablets was over £8 billion.

One of the most interesting findings was that about 80% of the mobile sales were using tablets, and only 20% were with smartphones, indicating that customers still value larger screens.

Mark Lewis, Online Director at John Lewis, said: “Today, over half of the traffic to johnlewis.com comes from mobile and tablet devices and we’ve also seen an increase in the conversion rate of traffic to sales… customers want to be able to shop seamlessly across all channels and mobile is now the go-to choice alongside visiting our shops.”

Gareth Jones, group retail and strategy director at Shop Direct, said: “As a device, the smartphone is the fastest growing sales channel for us, highlighting our customers’ growing confidence in transacting on their phones.”

04.09.2014    Tags: m-commerce, mobile-shopping, UK