Study: Consumers more likely to shop on mobile devices than PCs

Crain News Service report

RESTON, Va. (Aug. 28, 2013) — While the "Year of Mobile" remains elusive for advertisers, it appears to have already arrived for e-commerce.

Smartphone and tablet users are more likely to visit a retail website or app than desktop computer users, and more than a third of visits to the top 50 e-commerce sites come exclusively from mobile devices, according to a new study from analytics firm Reston-based comScore Inc.

In June, 91 percent of tablet users and 90 percent of smartphones users accessed mobile e-commerce Web properties. That's compared with the 78 percent of desktop Web users that accessed e-commerce sites. The importance of e-commerce on mobile devices is further reinforced by the study's finding that 35 percent of visitors to the most popular e-commerce sites only access those websites from mobile devices.

"Retailers who do not (at a minimum) optimize their mobile browsing experience or introduce mobile apps are effectively turning away a third of their potential customers," comScore said in a blog post about the study.

Some other insights from the study include:

• Consumers prefer to use commerce apps on smartphones, but prefer mobile browsers when using tablets.
• Smartphones account for more m-commerce dollars overall, but per device spending on tablets is 20-percent higher than on smartphones.

This report appeared in Advertising Age magazine, a New York City-based sister publication of Tire Business.