According to recent data from Branding Brand regarding Thanksgiving and Black Friday sales, about a third of all e-commerce traffic over the holiday came from smartphones. While this may not sound like a lot, the year-over-year gains are what we found most striking.
Smartphone sales are skyrocketing, and are on pace to dominate the market in the very near future. Consider some of the Black Friday increases on smartphone-optimized sites from last year to this year:
• Visits were up 76%
• Views were up 88%
• Average order value was up 22%
• Mobile sales increased 187%
187 percent! The Thanksgiving Day increases were also staggering:
• Visits were up 69%
• Page views were up 103%
• Average order value was up 16%
• Mobile sales were up 258%
258%. We can’t even put an exclamation point on that one. It’s an absurd increase. Mobile device shopping is exploding in popularity, and these numbers show just how drastic the changes are.
Good for mobile sellers, I guess. Why should the average small business owner care?
These data show that it’s more valuable than ever before to offer mobile-optimized sales. With easy-to-implement mobile stores, the profit potential has become much more attractive than in past years. For many small business owners, the idea of offering a mobile store was once a costly proposition that offered little return. Now, the above figures show that generating a significant amount of revenue via the mobile platform has become a lot easier.
There are two forces driving these changes: 1) user behavior and 2) the availability of solutions.
As for user behavior, when only a small segment of the consumer market was shopping via mobile, it simply wasn’t worth it to cater to them. Now, with users flocking to mobile stores and huge volumes of transactions happening on mobile platforms, the critical mass is there. And if trends continue, the majority of online shoppers (or perhaps just “shoppers”) will soon be making purchases via mobile.
As for the availability of solutions, creating and managing a mobile store once required major IT expenditures, took lots of time to implement, and was difficult to maintain and control. Now, there are cost-effective solutions that can be set up and configured in record time, like Bizness Apps!
The mobile sales revolution is definitely here. And if you want to join in the fun before this holiday season is over, we can absolutely help.
