IMRG Capgemini research shows 2,000% rise in mobile retail sales

Sales via mobile devices continued to grow in the first quarter of 2012, according to new research, but bounce-rates on m-commerce sites are also on the rise.

IMRG Capgemini’s latest Quarterly Benchmarking Index revealed that mobile sales accounted for 8.2 per cent of all online trading during the first quarter of 2012, up by over 2,000 per cent from Q1 two years ago when they represented just 0.4 per cent of the sector.

Visits via mobile devices are currently double the volume of sales however, making up 16.4 per cent of all online traffic to retail sites last quarter, and the increasingly promiscuous attitude of mobile shoppers is underlined by a soaring bounce rate.

Bounce rate is defined as the percentage of visitors who enter a website’s homepage but leave without viewing any other pages, and this rate across the industry has grown from 23 per cent in Q1 last year to 27 per cent this year.

Tina Spooner, Chief Information Officer at IMRG, said: “The competition and choice available to online shoppers has always provided a fundamental challenge for retailers, as a hard-to-please visitor can easily become disinterested at the initial contact with a brand.

“These figures show that consumers are becoming ever more demanding when finding the online experience that suits them.

“Retailers need to ensure that the site is as engaging as possible for their customer demographic, looking at usability, social elements and performance through key channels and browsers. For online consumers, it would appear that first impressions really matter.”

The quarterly report from IMRG & Capgemini also showed that average return-on-investment (ROI) for mobile marketing has grown 37 per cent year-on-year, in comparison to affiliate & PPC marketing which saw ROI decline during that period.

Chris Webster, Head of Retail and Technology at Capgemini, said: “The potential importance of mobile as a channel had been established and we are now seeing this translate into site visits and sales.

“We have yet to appreciate fully the impact of the mobile device in all its glory; location based marketing, mobile payments, near-field communication for customer identification; integration with social media.

“Mobile is the expression of your personality and customers are now more concerned never to be without their mobile phone that their wallet.”

Source : Jon Whiteaker – Retail Gazette
www.retailgazette.co.uk/articles/21344-mobile-retail-sales-rise-2000-in-two-years