More people shopped by phone than by computer over the holidays
Mobile reached a milestone during the recent holidays. Adobe Analytics said that for the first time in approximately 11 years of tracking this data, consumers did most of their online holiday shopping on phones. Retailers, for their part, doubled down on getting consumers to tap that Buy Now button. Did the shift to mobile influence what was bought?
In November and December, people shopping on smartphones accounted for around 51% of online sales, according to Adobe. That includes Greg Portell.
“I had a few minutes to kill at an airport, clicked a few buttons and all of a sudden the big holiday purchase was done in five minutes,” he said.
When he’s not scrolling and shopping, Portell is with management consulting firm Kearney. That big holiday purchase? A record player for his daughter. And Portell said the retailer was smart — it offered him only a few choices.
“There are hundreds of record players, and their choice of showing me these three was brilliant,” he said.
It was like they knew he only had a few minutes. Portell said retailers are trying to make shopping via phone as easy as possible.
Vivek Pandya, a lead analyst at Adobe, said consumers are getting more comfortable using their phones for impulse buys. And retailers are pushing smartphone apps to build loyalty among time-pressed scrollers.
“That really drives how they shop, when they’re shopping and their comfortability shopping with one retailer than the other,” he said.
Those shopping apps even grabbed eyeballs on Christmas Day. Adobe said mobile shopping was highest on Dec. 25. Part of that was people redeeming gift cards, but Paula Rosenblum with RSR Research also thinks people just got bored.
“You know, I’m sitting here and there’s just so long I can talk to Aunt Sally and I really wanna just entertain myself,” she said.
Maybe Aunt Sally didn’t get you what you wanted. That’s why Rosenblum suspects much of the Christmas Day shopping we did on our mobile phones was for ourselves.