Mobile Devices Continue Playing Bigger Role in Holiday Shopping, IBM Says

Cyber Monday was the biggest online shopping day ever, according to findings from IBM Digital Analytics’ Benchmark Cyber Monday report. Jay Henderson, strategy director-IBM Smarter Commerce, said retailers who adopted a “smarter marketing approach” to e-commerce were able to adjust to the “shifting shopping habits of their customers.”

Mobile devices’ prominent perch this holiday season, which began with surging Black Friday sales, continued through Cyber Monday as shoppers not only bought boatloads of smartphones and tablets Monday but used their mobile devices in increasing numbers to shop -- at a far higher rate than in 2011 -- according to the report. Nearly one in five consumers used a mobile device to visit a retailer website, IBM said, up 70 percent over 2011, and sales via mobile devices catapulted 96 percent, with 13 percent of shoppers making a purchase using a phone or tablet.

Apple products were the leaders of online mobile shopping, with the iPad generating more traffic than any other mobile device, driving more than 7 percent of online shopping, IBM said. The iPhone was right behind at 6.9 percent, it said, and Android devices were used in 4.5 percent of online purchases. The iPad dominated tablet traffic at 90.5 percent, with Amazon’s Kindle limping behind at 2.6 percent, followed by the Samsung Galaxy at 2 percent and Barnes & Noble Nook devices at 0.6 percent, it said.

Overall Cyber Monday sales jumped 30 percent over 2011, said the report, and Cyber Monday sales outperformed Black Friday 2012 sales by 37 percent. A lot of shopping took place during office hours, as cyber shopping hit its peak just before lunch time on the East Coast at 11:25 a.m. EST, according to IBM data. Mobile sales slipped Monday as consumers “went back to work and conducted more of their shopping from their PC,” the report said. On Cyber Monday, an average workday, both mobile traffic and sales were down more than 20 percent from Black Friday, it said.

Average online order value on Cyber Monday was $185.12, with department stores seeing the most growth at 43 percent over 2011, the report said. Online apparel sales, which led Black Friday shopping categories by a wide margin, grew 25 percent over 2011, and home goods -- including consumer electronics -- were up 27 percent on Cyber Monday, data indicated. Shopping cart conversion rate grew 1.2 percentage points to 38.2 percent, IBM said, and shopping cart abandonment rated dipped from 62.3 percent to 61.9 percent, it said.

Multi-tasking is expanding during Cyber Monday shopping, as consumers shopped simultaneously in store, online and on mobile devices to get the best bargains, IBM said. Roughly 58 percent of consumers used smartphones compared to 42 percent who used tablets to hunt for bargains Monday, it said.

Savvy shopping translated to lower average receipts, according to the report. Consumers continued the trend of shopping more and spending more to cash in on deals, along with free shipping, which led to a drop in average order value by 6.6 percent to $185.12. The average number of items per order rose 14.1 percent to 8.34 compared to Black Friday, it said.

Social networking’s role in Cyber Monday shrank in 2012, the report said. Shoppers referred from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube generated 0.41 percent of all online sales on Cyber Monday, falling from 26 percent in 2011, IBM said.

IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark is a cloud-based Web analytics platform that tracks more than a million e-commerce transactions a day, analyzing terabytes of raw data from 500 retailers nationwide.