• by Chuck Martin , Staff Writer, March 27, 2014

As mobile commerce continues to pick up steam, more analysis of the details of that activity continues to emerge.

In the latest look at how retailers are dealing with mobile, it looks like quite a mixed bag.

The marketing firm Search Agency’s Mobile Experience Scorecard ranked 100 Web-only retailers’ mobile home pages based on elements including search, mobile site load time, shopping cart buttons and social media links.

The study found differences in demographics based on how some of the mobile sites scored. For example:

• 75% of the 20 highest scoring sites skewed more toward females
• 75% of the 20 lowest scoring sites skewed more toward males
• 78% of the sites using responsive design skewed female
• 66% of the sites using dedicated mobile sites skewed female
• 65% of the sites that used desktop sites skewed male

The analysis found that of the 100 retailers, a majority (59%) use dedicated mobile sites while some (32%) lead mobile users to the desktop version of their site.

The top scoring industries were jewelry, health/beauty and apparel/accessories. The higher scoring verticals skew more towards industries that cater to female customers and lower scoring sites skew toward male customers in predominantly male-oriented verticals, according to the report.

By industry category, here’s a list of best to worst in mobile, according to the analysis:

1. Jewelry
2. Health, beauty
3. Apparel, accessories
4. Mass merchant
5. Specialty
6. Computer/electronics
7. Books, music, video
8. Food, drug
9. Home furnishings
10. Sporting goods
11. Office supplies

Interestingly, the report suggests that all of the companies it its survey are financially successful, since they are in the top 500 companies with the highest e-commerce sales.

The report concludes that many of the businesses continue to be successful despite their failure to optimize for mobile. Imagine if they did.