Dive Brief:
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A third of e-commerce consumers at the top 10 retailers, measured in monthly unique visitors, shopped exclusively via smartphones and/or tablets in 2013, according to a study by e-commerce analytics company comScore Inc.
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A reported 29% of Amazon.com Inc.’s 178 million monthly unique shoppers access the retailer through smartphones or tablets, and 43% of Target’s 66 million monthly unique visitors do so, as well.
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ComScore’s findings were backed by numbers from some of the top retailers. Target, for example, said that two-thirds of its customers use their smartphones heavily. From Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday in 2013, for example, half of Target’s digital traffic was m-commerce.
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Mobile-only consumers include techies, lower income people less likely to have a home computer, and, of course, younger consumers.
Dive Insight:
Wow, does this study ever show the dramatic rise in m-commerce in the past year. Smartphones, tablets, and the apps that make m-commerce possible have become ubiquitous and easy to use. No doubt this phenomenon will soon become less startling, as more people acquire tablets and phones with app capabilities. Other studies recently have shown how important it is to get these apps right, but this study shows how top retailers have no choice but to be mobile-ready.
