Holiday Shopping Goes Mobile
On the eve of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, 2011 is expected to be the year of the mobile holiday shopper as more consumers are expected to make their purchases via an iPad, Android phone and other devices. A recent IBM analytics benchmark projects that online holiday shopping in November will grow as much as 15 percent (versus 3.9 percent in November 2010) — and many of those shoppers will make their purchases using a mobile device.
IBM’s Viewpoint
IBM’s key predictions for the November holiday shopping season include:
— The Mobile Impact: A record number of consumers will shop from their mobile devices. October 2011 figures state that 10.7 percent of people who logged onto a retailer’s site used a mobile device, up from 4.2 percent the year before. Additionally, sales transactions from mobile devices are growing, reaching a high of 9.6 percent in October 2011, up from 3.4 percent in October 2010.
— The iPad Factor: The iPad will dominate holiday sales over other mobile devices. This trend is based on October 2011 figures where 6.8 percent of consumers shopping on an iPad made a purchase as compared to the overall mobile device purchase rate of 3.6 percent.
— The Facebook Factor: The vast majority of social shopping will continue to come from Facebook, which in October accounted for 77 percent of all traffic from social sites.
What They’re Saying
In a report on Fox Business, IBM Smarter Commerce Chief Strategy Officer John Squire discusses increasing consumer interest in using mobile devices to shop for holiday gifts http://ibm.co/rwtNqU
A MarketWatch article suggests that 2011 will be the year of the mobile shopper http://ibm.co/tratiL
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