U.S. Mobile Device Use Increasingly Important To Holiday Sales (NewsFactor)

The use of mobile devices for making online purchases doubled in December from nine months earlier, according to a new report from RichRelevance. The customized-shopping-experience designer's study also indicates that over 90 percent of U.S. consumers making mobile purchases over the period were using an Apple device.

"The numbers across our retailing partners sites demonstrate just how powerful the iOS platform is enabling mobile web shopping and, while still below 5 percent in total conversion, mobile traffic's doubling in eight months is a trend we only see accelerating," said RichRelevance CEO David Selinger.

However, companies engaged in e-commerce also will need to boost their own efforts to make the e-commerce experience as painless as possible for consumers.

"In order to succeed in this dynamic market, retailers and brands must ensure they are addressing relevance throughout the channels where people are shopping, ensuring a seamless experience across the interplay of device, context and consumer behavior," Selinger said.

Mobile Users Spending More

The new study based on 3.4 billion shopping sessions at the Web sites of U.S. online retailers between April 1 and Dec. 18 shows that 24 percent of all U.S. online shoppers on Thanksgiving were using a mobile device. What's more, Forrester Research analyst Sucharita Mulpuru said the heightened use of mobile devices for online shopping is the most notable difference during this year's holiday shopping season.

"Sixteen percent of online buyers said they shopped with their mobile devices over the Thanksgiving weekend this year -- up from 9 percent last year," Mulpuru wrote in a blog.

Between Dec. 1 and Dec. 18, U.S. consumers equipped with iOS-enabled devices spent 19 percent more on their online purchases than Android device owners, RichRelevance said. Apple device-user purchases generated $123 vs. $101 for those made by Android device users.

Over the course of the study's nine-month period, mobile-device purchases accounted for a mere 3 percent of U.S. consumer purchases overall. However, RichRelevance expects this holiday season's trend toward more mobile purchasing to continue accelerating in the years ahead as more U.S. consumers adopt smartphones and media tablets.

Meeting Mobile User Expectations

With millions of new U.S. consumers have just unwrapped a smartphone or media tablet over the holidays, the entertainment, software publishing and multimedia industries will doubtlessly see a bump in online purchases in the weeks ahead. And over the long run, Gartner is predicting that by 2015 companies engaged in e-commerce will be generating 50 percent of their Web sales by way of their social presence and mobile apps.

Mobile browsing accounted for 6.7 percent of the global market in December -- with Apple's Safari leading the pack with a 55 percent share, according to the latest data from Net Applications. With Apple's mobile devices accounting for 92 percent of all mobile purchases in December, the key lesson for mobile device rivals is that they need to revamp their own browser offerings to elevate the e-commerce experience they offer mobile device users.

Companies and organizations engaged in e-commerce also will need to "scale up their operations to handle the increased visitation loads resulting from customers not having to wait until they are in front of a PC to obtain answers to questions or place orders," noted Gartner Vice President Gene Alvarez.

As more consumers use smartphones and other mobile devices, Alvarez noted, they will expect an extension of their customer experience to be supported by this kind of device while demanding that social aspects of the Web be intertwined with this experience.

"In time, e-commerce vendors will begin to offer context-aware mobile-shopping solutions as part of their overall Web sales offerings," Alvarez predicted.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/internet/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20111226/tc_nf/81529

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