Tracking millions of e-commerce transactions from more than 200 participating UK retail websites, the IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark has revealed how online shopping has become increasingly mobile, led by tablet and iOS users.
The findings come from Monday, 25 November – dubbed ‘Mega Monday’ – and a second study will be held on Monday, 2 December.
On this day, online sales are said to have increased by 33.5pc compared to the same day in 2012.
Of all online traffic recorded on this day, mobile traffic accounted for 42.4pc – up 68pc from 2012. Plenty of this mobile traffic resulted in purchases, too, with 31pc of all online sales being completed through mobile devices, marking an 81.5pc increase year-on-year.
While smartphones account for more traffic (22.3pc) than tablets (20pc), tablet users were more likely to make purchases, accounting for 19.4pc of online sales compared to 12.4pc from smartphones.
Apple users are more eager to browse and shop using mobile devices than their Android cousins, with iOS traffic generating 30.7pc of all online traffic and 24.6pc of sales, while Android users were responsible for 10.8pc of traffic and 6.7pc of sales.
IBM also looked at which social networks were driving higher purchases and found that shoppers referred from Facebook averaged stg£59.39 per order versus stg£36.50 for those coming from Pinterest. In addition, Facebook referrals converted sales at two times the rate of Pinterest referrals.
