Commentary

Half Of Shoppers At Top Retailers Are Mobile

According to new 2015 data from comScore Inc., in the new mobile economy, many U.S. consumers’ home desktop PCs are fossils gathering dust as these consumers rely almost entirely on smartphones and tablets to access the Internet. In fact, says the report, 10% of U.S. Internet users only access the Internet on mobile devices.

And there are more mobile-only shoppers than mobile-only Internet users: 13% of Internet users accessing retail destinations (sites and apps) only use mobile devices to do so, the study finds.

Even more intriguing, continues the report, is the percent of mobile-only shoppers at the top 10 retailers. The chart shows the top retailers, total digital unique monthly visitors (in millions) in January 2015, and the percentage of total visitors that only shop the retailers on smartphones and/or tablets, according to comScore:

US Shoppers Visiting Top Retailers Only on Mobile Device (Monthly Visitors; Millions; January 2015)

                  Unique Monthly Visitors (Millions)

Top Retailers

Total Digital

Desktop

Mobile

Mobile Only

Mobile Only % of Total Digital

Amazon.com

180

111

121

69

38%

eBay Inc

122

69

82

54

44%

Wal-Mart Stores

83

41

54

42

51%

Apple Inc

79

32

55

47

59%

Netflix Inc

68

48

34

20

29%

Target Corp

50

23

31

27

53%

Best Buy Co

36

20

20

17

46%

Ticketmaster

33

14

22

20

59%

QVC Group

28

13

17

15

53%

Kohl’s Corp

28

15

16

13

48%

Source: comScore Inc., January 2015

Apple skews high because of the enormous number of Apple customers who make purchases in the App Store, iTunes and other digital properties on their iPhones and iPads, says the report. QVC skews high because it and most TV retailers have been pioneers in mobile commerce primarily because many of their customers are sitting in front of TVs with their mobile devices in hand. Ticketmaster skews high because tickets offer a business model especially suitable for mobile commerce: a straightforward product and checkout, with a product that increasingly winds up stored on a smartphone (a mobile ticket).

Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy and Kohl’s all are giant chain retailers where consumers increasingly are using smartphones as personal shopping assistants in stores. That leaves three web-only merchants: Amazon and eBay, which were very early innovators in m-commerce that today offer popular, rich and easy-to-use apps, and Netflix, which is by far the merchant among the top 10 with the lowest percentage of mobile-only shoppers (29%), notes the report.

Although mobile-only shoppers represent a significant percentage of individual retailers’ audiences, only one in eight digital shoppers overall are mobile-only.

Andrew Lipsman, vice president of marketing and insights at comScore, concludes that “… most consumers use both desktop and mobile for commerce… (depending on) time, location, occasion and retailer… because mobile often is the only channel by which a shopper might engage with a retailer… it is… critical that mobile apps and mobile sites be optimized (for mobile)...”

For additional information about the study, please visit Internet Retailer here.

 

1 comment about "Half Of Shoppers At Top Retailers Are Mobile".
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  1. Melanie Kaupke from ASU, March 27, 2015 at 3:01 a.m.

    Reading this article didn't surprise me at all. As an iPhone user, I probably do 75% of my online searches and shopping on my phone. The only time I really ever do browsing or shopping on my macbook is when I am already using it for school purposes. I hardly ever pick up my computer to use the internet when I already have my phone in my hand. I think a lot of sites are easier to use in the mobile version, thus making online shopping and searching, especially with companies like amazon, easy to do through a smartphone. However, sometimes there are sites I will attempt to look at on my phone that do not have mobile friendly versions, and that makes it very frustrating to try to navigate on such a small phone. I think the best investment a company can make these days are to make mobile versions of their websites.

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