Mobile’s importance is becoming undeniable according to eMarketer.
Mobile still accounts for a fairly small share of total retail sales, and, in many markets, even of digital retail sales. But retailers are feeling the impact of mobile devices.
In 2014, a little over half (57%) of retailers worldwide surveyed by payment solutions provider Payvision reported experiencing major growth in mcommerce sales. Among the total, 33% strongly agreed that growth was significant—already a sizeable share.
But by 2015 the evidence in favor of mcommerce was overwhelming. Nearly half of respondents were now in the “strongly agree” group, with an additional 34% agreeing more generally. Overall, 79% of retailers worldwide were undergoing major mcommerce growth this year.
More retailers around the world are getting into omnichannel as a result. This year, 91% of respondents said they offered customers the option to shop and pay across multiple devices. That was up from 84% last year.
Nearly three in four respondents reported this year that such an option had boosted sales via digital devices. In addition, 71% of retailers surveyed said they were focused on offering seamless shopping across multiple devices as well as offline sales channels.
eMarketer estimates that in 2015, US consumers bought $74.93 billion worth of goods and services via mobile devices, up 32.2% over 2014 spending levels. This year, mobile accounted for 22.0% of all retail ecommerce sales in the US, up 3 points since last year. It still made up a tiny portion of total retail sales, however, at just 1.6%.
In some other world markets, mcommerce is a bigger part of the picture. In South Korea, for example, mcommerce sales made up 46.0% of retail ecommerce sales and 5.1% of total retail sales this year, according to eMarketer estimates. In China, 49.7% of retail ecommerce sales and 7.9% of all retail sales occurred via mobile devices in 2015.
