Black Friday, Cyber Monday Lessons: You Simply Can’t Ignore Mobile Commerce
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Think "mobile commerce" is a mythical concept created by guilt-tripping professionals looking to justify their time spent texting and playing Words with Friends? Perhaps you were not around this past weekend.
Another successful Black Friday—and its accompanying Cyber Monday—are in the books as the 2011 holiday shopping season commences, and research points to mobile playing an increasingly-important role.
According to research from IBM, the percentage of sales attributed to mobile devices tripled, rising from 3.2% in 2010 to 9.8% in 2011. These devices accounted for a healthy 14.3% of e-commerce traffic, up from 5.6% in 2010.
Given its online footing, "Cyber Monday," interestingly, did not attract as much mobile enthusiasm. Still, with portable devices responsible for 6.6% of sales and 10.8% of retail traffic, shares significantly higher than the 2010 percentages, they have definitely begun to make their mark on the holiday shopping season.
Very telling is the fact that mobile commerce significantly outpaced social commerce on the first weekend of the holiday season. Compared to the very sizable percentages of sales stemming from mobile, social referrals can only take credit for .53% of online Black Friday sales and .56% of Cyber Monday sales.
Obviously, the two are not mutually-exclusive and should typically be relied upon as complementary facets of the customer management approach. Still, given how much more hype and attention social media receives in customer management circles, it is interesting to see how significantly its impact on commerce trails that of mobile.
Why Did Mobile Matter?
So what drove the huge surge in mobile commerce this season? Try answering this question without pointing to the Apple factor, I dare you!
IBM’s report reveals the significant impact of the iPad on the success of mobile; on Black Friday, it produced a 4.6% conversion rate with retail shoppers, as opposed to a 2.8% overall rate. On Cyber Monday, it escalated to 5.2%, compared with a 4.6% average.
On the whole, Apple’s key mobile devices—the iPhone and the iPad—drove a whopping 10.2% of all online Black Friday shopping traffic, significantly outpacing the impact of the spectrum of Android-powered devices.
While many firmly believe the Android operating system is more flexible and robust, Apple’s iOS devices seem to be attracting the level of engagement that matters most to merchants. When shaping their mobile strategies, customer management leaders should thus consider two key questions:
- How can we design a message that specifically drives action from iOS users?
- How can we design a mobile shopping experience that gets at the qualities, like simplicity and intuitiveness, that make the iOS experience more engaging than the Android experience?
Another driver comes from a break with what some may deem conventional wisdom: the success of mobile commerce hinges on a surplus of "couch shoppers" who would rather buy gifts while watching television and sharing a meal with family members than fuel up on cases of Red Bull and ready their elbows for shoving battles among seas of angry, sleep-deprived shoppers inside Best Buy and Target locations.
Certainly, that demographic contributed to the success of mobile shopping. But per IBM’s report, there was also another group that drove the impressive mobile results—those brick-and-mortar shoppers who used their mobile devices as pocket research tools.
With more dominant mobile traffic on Black Friday (a heavy brick-and-mortar day) than Cyber Monday (an online shopping day) as evidence, faith definitely exists in the notion that the in-store experience spilled over into mobile. As customers considered in-store deals, they turned to their mobile devices to evaluate the product features and pricing, and this sometimes drove customers to online/mobile destinations with more desirable offers.
The implication there is two-fold: in addition to assuring their products are readily—and desirably—accessible to mobile customers, retailers must also how the existence of mobile commerce can impact the brick-and-mortar experience. Now that a customer has a mobile tool to stifle his impulsiveness and shop more intelligently, retailers will increasingly need to think more strategically—and competitively—about how they position their in-store offers.
It’s Time To Maximize Your Mobile Commerce Success – The B2C impact is clear, and mobile B2B commerce is also becoming a major revenue driver; do not get left behind! Join our leading speaking faculty at the 3rd Mobile Commerce Summit—details, agenda and registration info here!
