• by Chuck Martin , Staff Writer, August 5, 2013

The holiday shopping forecasts are starting to come out and retailers can expect even more of their sales being influenced by mobile this year.

A rather obvious cause is that more shoppers have smartphones than they did last year and some merchants are coming to grips with this reality.

With the majority of retailers expecting higher sales this year, many are looking at mobile as a significant source of revenue and as a driver of store traffic.

A majority (53%) expect mobile transactions will account for a significant portion of holiday revenue and more than a third (38%) see mobile as driving renewed in-store interest that will lead to more revenue, according to a new survey.

The study, conducted by the e-tailing group for Baynote, comprised a survey of 77 retailers and found that the majority (60%) are forecasting online holiday shopping growth higher than 10%.

Interestingly, the survey showed the mobile momentum into the holiday season to be in stark contrast to social media, with 84% seeing it as having little or no impact on sales.

For context, online sales via PC and mobile are expected to hit $262 billion this year and the Web will influence $1.2 trillion of sales, or 43% of retail sales, according to think tank L2.

The growth of e-commerce has been well documented in numerous studies and much of that physical purchasing is migrating to mobile devices.

This translates to more shopping by phone with less location dependence, such as from a fixed PC at home.

In yet a third piece of research out today, m-commerce provider Branding Brand sent me their latest monthly track of a group of major retailers whose commerce sites they developed specifically for mobile commerce.

The research is based on 76 million Web visits, 499 million page views and 1.2 million orders totaling $155 million and points to the continuing rise in mobile commerce. Compared to the same month a year ago, the Branding Brand study shows:

• 54% increase in smartphone visits 
• 35% increase in tablet visits
• 40% increase in smartphone orders
• 47% increase in tablet orders
• 61% increase in smartphone revenue
• 35% increase in tablet revenue        

Multiple indicators show that mobile Web commerce is on the rise and we’ll have to wait to see just how big an impact it has in the coming holiday season. Any guesses?