All Statistics On the Rise
With an eye on holiday sales statistics, The Washington Post reports that an initial IBM Benchmark sales tracker report shows a 33 percent rise in online sales during yesterday’s Cyber Monday. Though statistics aren’t official until retailers report their November sales this coming Thursday, the report is consistent with predictions for other major holiday shopping days. Sales are rising everywhere, including in brick-and-mortar establishments, but especially online. With the average online order rising 2.6 percent, Web traffic increasing by 28 percent, and a 2.3 percent rise in the number of consumers using mobile devices to shop, Americans are clearly growing more comfortable with using their personal computers, tablets, and smartphones to shop.
Read more at washingtonpost.com.
Retailers Working to Meet M-Commerce Demands
In the UK, 59 percent of consumers own a smartphone and 18 percent own a tablet device. Of the smartphone owners, 33 percent have used their devices to buy a product online, and a further 26 percent have purchased items using an app. These statistics show the m-commerce market is now too large to ignore, and it’s time to take a long, hard look at the way retailers are meeting consumer needs.
From the looks of a recent survey by EPiServer, consumers have fairly nuanced expectations of retailers, and many major sellers are slowly but surely working to fulfill those expectations. An article from Econsultancy elaborates on results from this study, which focuses on the relationship between UK mobile consumers and UK online retailers and how the two groups are approaching mobile sites and apps. The survey reached 1,000 consumers and 200 senior marketing executives, revealing that retailers still have a lot of work to do in order to meet finicky mobile shoppers.
An overview of the statistics shows users have had problems browsing both mobile-optimized sites and apps, they are more than willing to visit competitor sites if their preferred one isn’t loading quickly, and they prefer to use apps over mobile-optimized sites. With only 18 percent of retailers supporting iPhone or iPad apps, and 12 of the top 50 UK retailers not even supporting a mobile-optimized site in the first place, there is a long road ahead for retailers seeking to please savvy consumers.
Read more at econsultancy.com.
