Smartphone shoppers set new record on Cyber Monday 

Shoppers using their smartphones to buy online set a new record yesterday (Cyber Monday) according to the official sales figures from the annual holiday shopping weekend.

The Adobe Retail Insights data confirms that this year, shoppers used their smartphones to purchase $2.1 billion worth of goods – the most ever for Cyber Monday. This is up from $1.4 billion last year, which in itself was a world record. What’s more, more than half (51.4%) of all traffic to websites during Cyber Monday originated from a smartphone, and 34% of revenue came from a mobile device.

Speaking about the shopping data in the official Adobe statement, John Copeland, head of Marketing and Customer Insights at Adobe commented, “Cyber Monday sales topped $7.9 billion according to Adobe Analytics data, making it the single largest shopping day in U.S. history. Sales coming from smartphones hit an all-time high of $2 billion and we saw a significant spike in the Buy Online, Pickup In-Store trend.”

Larger retailers fared especially well, with 6% higher conversions recorded from smartphones. The smaller shops by comparison did better from their traditional desktop stores. So what does this mean for you and your app development business?

1. There’s a strong case for ecommerce apps

The record breaking volume of purchases made from online devices across Cyber Monday shows that that shoppers are now very comfortable purchasing directly from their smartphone. This is great news for your app development business because it shows there is lots of potential for apps with an ecommerce element.

You can use these figures to begin conversations with clients, highlighting consumer mobile purchase power.

2. Companies investing in mobile purchase methods logged more conversions

It’s easy to make a strong argument for investment in ecommerce mobile apps when you consider that the larger retailers – who tend to have invested more perfecting the mobile shopping experience – recorded lots more conversions from mobile devices than smaller firms, who did better on desktop. This means a fully functioning mobile app that facilitates purchases from a smartphone poses a very interesting ROI potential.

3. Your apps should link to mobile sites to satisfy consumer shopping habits

Even if your app doesn’t facilitate in-app purchases directly, linking to a mobile website to complete the transaction should be a minimum functionality. Consumers have shown that they are more comfortable than ever buying from their phone, so creating pathways to mobile purchase from your app designs is an absolute must.