Thanksgiving Day 2016 will go down in tech history as having hit a “tipping point” for mobile shopping.
So says ChannelAdvisor. And the National Retail Federation reports similar findings.
New data from the Triangle-based global ecommerce solutions provider show that mobile devices for the first time accounted for more than half of Thanksgiving day shopping transactions.
What’s more, smartphones account for most of those sales.
And people were using their phones to scan for deals, too.
“Smartphone traffic accounted for nearly 70 percent of Thanksgiving Day traffic,” ChannelAdvisor reports.
“For the first time in ChannelAdvisor history, m-commerce orders have surpassed computer orders. 53 percent of orders on Thanksgiving Day were driven through a mobile device. What’s more, smartphones accounted for 42 percent of those orders.”
The report from ChannelAdvisor, which was one of the first companies to focus on e-commerce, was reflected in a report from a National Retail Federation survey about Thanksgiving and Black Friday shopping.
“According to the survey, 56 percent of smartphone owners and 53 percent of tablet owners used their devices to assist with weekend shopping activities,” the NRF said.
Shoppers up but spending down
Overall, more than 154 million people went shopping over the holiday weekend, up more than 3 million than a year ago.
The average spend was down slightly to $289 from $299 year-over-year, but the NRF reports that shoppers cashed in on plenty of markdowns.
“It was a strong weekend for retailers, but an even better weekend for consumers, who took advantage of some really incredible deals,” NRF CEO Matthew Shay said in the NRF report. “In fact, over one third of shoppers said 100% of their purchases were on sale.”
ChannelAdvisor did note that m-commerce shopping still is no guarantee of making a sale, though.
“Mobile has historically had a low conversion rate, and Thanksgiving Day was no exception with a 2.1% conversion rate for smartphones and 3.9% for tablets (on par with what we’ve seen the past couple years),” it said ina blog post.
“However, the fact that there was such a large percentage of orders driven through mobile despite the low conversion rate shows just how heavy the traffic was on Thanksgiving Day.”
Players big and small reported surges in mobile traffic.
“According to Walmart, mobile traffic accounted for greater than 70% of its Black Friday event traffic. Amazon and eBay also reported mobile,” ChannelAdvisor noted. “And ChannelAdvisor customer eBags reported that its sales via mobile on Thanksgiving Day were up 100%.”
More coverage
Read more from ChannelAdvisor at:
And the NRF report at:
https://nrf.com/media/press-releases/retailers-made-black-friday-irresistible-consumers-great-deals-online-and-store
