UK retailers experienced a surge in visits from mobile phones over the Christmas period, with traffic increasing by up to 100% between December 24 and 27.
These are the latest stats reported by Econsultancy. Boxing Day was the busiest time for mobile shopping as customers used phones to check prices, look for local stores, and make purchases, taking advantage of sales.
Usablenet, a leading digital platform company, whose clients include John Lewis, ASOS, JD Sports, M&S, Next and Tesco, reported its UK mobile sites experienced an average increase in traffic of 300% during the Christmas weekend.
Hitwise stats for Christmas found that traffic peaked on Boxing Day, followed by December 27. Multichannel retailers were the biggest beneficiaries, receiving 123% more traffic on Boxing Day than online-only retailers.
The top consumer activities via mobile were shopping and browsing for products, making a purchase, followed by checking store locations and tracking orders.
The most visited pages on mobile retail sites were product pages, search pages, My account sections, and store locator tools.
The top five devices used over Christmas were:
· iPhone
· Android
· Blackberry
· Nokia
· iPod
Mobile advertising
Mobile advertising stats from Adfonic also suggest a peak in mobile use over Christmas. The most popular days were December 12, with a 400% increase in clicks on ads compared with the beginning of the month, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day.
Adfonic counted a 24% increase in mobile activity on Boxing Day compared with December 12, and activity peaked between 9pm and 10pm. Adfonic puts this surge down to the increased use of smartphones for shopping.
What does this mean for brands?
Research - Brands need to understand how people use their mobile device in the shopping process and the link it creates between M:commerce and bricks and mortar shopping. Armed with this information they can develop and integrate a successful mobile retail strategy.
HTML5 - It’s not all about apps! Whilst they do have their place in driving consumer engagement, a HTML5 mobile site is less expensive to build and can be connected into the discovery (maps) and recommendation services. It also enables brands and advertisers to drive consumers to useful information and promotional activity, something an app cannot do.
Geolocation - Location based mobile marketing can be very effective and has the ability to link digital marketing to real world commerce, shortening the customer journey from awareness, through product research and to purchase, often in a matter of minutes. In a recent client study we showed how location based mobile advertising drove footfall and take up of offers, whilst static mobile banner advertising drove awareness.
