We’re on the verge of a New Year. And all of us here at Imagination Media would like to wish you a very happy, healthy, productive and success 2016! We’d also like to make you aware of a fascinating forecast for 2016: Mobile shopping will continue to account for a larger and larger portion of e-commerce. And e-commerce itself is also projected to maintain growth throughout the new year.
We’re on the verge of a New Year. And all of us here at Imagination Media would like to wish you a very happy, healthy, productive and success 2016!
We’d also like to make you aware of a fascinating forecast for 2016:
Mobile shopping will continue to account for a larger and larger portion of e-commerce. And e-commerce itself is also projected to maintain growth throughout the new year.
Another trend shows that mobile shopping continues to take place via browser – at the expense of other, often superior apps. And it doesn’t look like this will change anytime soon.
Mobile also continues to grow in overall U.S. commerce importance. The growth of digital commerce, or e-commerce, continues to outpace overall retail growth. According to data from the U.S. Department of Commerce, retail sales increased only 2 percent from the same quarter a year ago – while digital commerce grew a full 15 percent.
And as e-commerce comprises more and more of total retail sales, mobile commerce will become a larger portion of e-commerce sales.
Per the Mobile Checkout Report by BI Intelligence report, mobile accounted for just under 12 percent of the $303 billion in U.S. e-commerce sales in 2014. But come 2020, mobile is expected to encompass a full 45 percent of the projected $632 billion in total e-commerce sales.
The total dollar amounts forecast are also quite eye-opening. BI Intelligence report estimates that consumers will spend $55 billion via mobile in 2016 – or 16 percent of total e-commerce. That figure is expected to soar to $284 billion by 2020.
Despites all these staggering numbers, smartphones continue to serve as mainly a tool for browsing – at the expense of buying. In other words, consumers continue to shop on mobile, but buy via other devices. Yes, U.S. adults spend more and more of their screen time on mobile devices like tablets and smartphones. And three out of every four American adults now own a smartphone. But most of their actual dollars are spent via desktop and other online channels.
On Thanksgiving and Black Friday, according to IBM, smartphones played a role in 45 percent of online shopping traffic – but just 21 percent of online sales. Additional data from comScore shows that consumers spend 59 percent of their time on mobile, but just 15 percent of their dollars. That contrasts sharply with their desktops or laptops – where consumers spend just 41 percent of their time, but a whopping 85 percent of their money.
Conversion rates on smartphones are also lower than they are on desktops and laptops. Additionally, smartphone shoppers add considerably fewer items to their carts – and abandon those lonely carts much more often – than desktop and laptop consumers.
Of course, it’s easy to understand many of the reasons for this disconnect. Mobile purchasing lags behind due to factors such as small screen size, a lack of properly mobile-optimized sites, performance and speed issues of mobile networks, and a perceived lack of mobile security. These factors are also highlighted in more detail in the BI Intelligence report.
That same report also suggests that this may very well be where mobile wallets come into play. For example, mobile wallets allow consumers to enter their card information once, and then pay online via an easy fingerprint touch. This also addresses the issues of speed and security, since the payment is relatively fast, and mobile wallets typically employ encryption.
Even though more than three-quarters of U.S. adults own a smartphone, mobile wallet adoption has been slow as we enter 2016. Only a small percentage of consumers have so far utilized emerging mobile wallet options like Samsung Pay, Apple Pay, or Android Pay.
The state of affairs is somewhat different when it comes to U.S. millennials, however, as 27 percent of them have made a purchase in store with their phone over the last month. The BI Intelligence report projects that as mobile commerce soars in the near future, the gains will be driven largely by app-based purchases – where mobile wallets provide simple payment experiences.
When it comes to meeting any and all of the e-commerce and mobile commerce needs for your business, you can turn to us here at Imagination Media to provide experience, expertise and insight. Contact us today to learn more!
