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Smartphone M-Commerce Revenues Grew 141 Percent In Q3 — Report

Merchants "must immediately face" the mobile challenge.

Greg Sterling on October 30, 2014 at 1:07 pm

This morning e-commerce platform MarketLive released its Q3 Performance Index. Drawn from its customers’ aggregated traffic and conversion data, MarketLive sounded the alarm on mobile commerce: “Merchants must immediately face – and address – the enormous implications and inescapable demands of multi-device shopping and mainstream mobile commerce.

The company said that smartphone traffic to e-commerce sites grew by more than 62 percent and revenue grew 141 percent. Tablet revenue and traffic grew by a more modest 20 percent. Though still dominant, PC-based commerce growth “continued its decline.”

PCs generated 57 percent of traffic to e-commerce sites but were responsible for 76 percent of revenues in the aggregate. Smartphones drove 28 percent of traffic but only 11 percent of revenue. Tablets generated 15 percent of traffic and 13 percent of revenue.

The gap between smartphone traffic and conversions is a function of the fact that m-commerce experiences are typically suboptimal. Accordingly and as part of the broader mobile traffic shift, MarketLive reported an overall 2 percent decline in conversions vs. a year ago. Shopping cart and checkout abandonment were both higher as well, up almost 3 percent and almost 7 percent respectively.

Among the e-commerce segments MarketLive tracks brick-and-mortar outperformed the others. Here “brick-and-mortar” means offline retailers that also sell online.

Organic search traffic drove 31 percent of visits overall and 26 percent of conversions, while paid-search generated 18 percent of traffic and 22 percent of revenues in the aggregate.

Traffic from email marketing was responsible for 13 percent of visits and 15 percent of conversions, said MarketLive in its report. By comparison social media referrals were responsible for 2 percent of traffic and 1 percent of conversions. Even though social’s impact was marginal compared to the other channels, MarketLive characterized it as a “small but important shift in how shoppers are influenced.”

The full report is available for download (registration required).

About The Author

Greg Sterling

Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land. He writes a personal blog, Screenwerk, about connecting the dots between digital media and real-world consumer behavior. He is also VP of Strategy and Insights for the Local Search Association. Follow him on Twitter or find him at Google+.