Sales via mobile up 1,320%
In the final quarter of 2009 mobile sales accounted for just 0.4% of e-retail sales. IMRG Capgemini’s latest Quarter Benchmarking Index reveals massive growth with mobile sales accounting for 5.3% of e-retail sales in the fourth quarter of 2011 – a rise of 1,320% in two years and up from 3.9% in Q3 2012.
Visits to retail sites through mobile devices also experienced impressive growth, exceeding 10% for the first time. In Q3 2011, 8.2% of visits were through a mobile device rising to 11.6% in Q4.
“Although it was already growing rapidly, this actually marks an acceleration in pace,” says Tina Spooner, Chief Information Officer at IMRG. “This could have been influenced by Q4 covering the Christmas period, where lots of consumers would have got access to a tablet device for the first time or advanced phone technology such as the iPhone 4S, which was released just toward the end of Q3.”
IMRG notes that some retailers reported that m-commerce sales accounted for as much as 9% of their total online sales over the 2011 festive period.
Recent research has found that mobile users are at risk from fraud but IMRG found good news in this respect. Their data shows the number of orders cancelled due to fraud dropped to its lowest level recorded in the two year period – 1.6% in Q4 2011, less than half of that recorded (3.6%) in Q1 2010.
