Mobile shopping will hit another “landmark” this holiday season, driving 57.1% of visits and 36.8% of revenue, experts at Adobe say.
Adobe ADBE, -2.05% is forecasting $124.1 billion in U.S. online sales this holiday season, up 14.8%. Mobile revenue will be up 11.6% year-over-year.
“Most notable here is the fact that mobile has torn through the 50% share of visits barrier and shows no signs of stopping,” said Taylor Schreiner, director of Adobe Digital Insights. “Consumers are driving this change as more daily activities are moved to smartphones, but retailers are also enabling it by meeting consumer needs on a smaller screen.”
With mobile driving so much of the actual shopping transactions, Schreiner says, “that is indeed a milestone.”
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Salesforce.com Inc. CRM, -3.49% goes further, forecasting that mobile will “dominate both traffic and orders for the entire season (68% of traffic and 46% of orders, respectively),” the organization wrote in its Holiday 2018 Predictions report.
Salesforce expects 46% of orders on Black Friday will be made on mobile devices, and on Christmas Eve, 72% of visits and 54% of orders will be on mobile phones.
Deloitte’s 2018 Holiday Survey shows that, among preferred shopping devices, “mobile has seen the largest increase over last year,” up to 46% from 40% in 2017. Desktops are still the most preferred devices at 76%, but that’s down from 83% last year.
Only 22% prefer tablets.
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E-commerce capability coupled with swift, flexible fulfillment options have made shopping more convenient than ever. Mobile ups that convenience factor by putting retailers where the shoppers are, whether that’s at home or on the road.
“The ability for the consumer to conduct commerce where they are in the journey of their day has changed,” said Linda Kirkpatrick, executive vice president of merchants and acceptance at Mastercard Inc. MA, -1.55% For example, consumers can buy a train or bus ticket, their morning coffee and their evening groceries without pulling out a card or cash.
Adobe data show that many voters were even shopping as they waited in line at the polls, with a quarter of Election Day sales taking place on smartphones.
More people living in cities and taking different forms of transportation that require some waiting around is also driving mobile shopping activity.
“Idle time has become shopping time,” said Mastercard’s Kirkpatrick. “All people who are connected feel a sense of being busier than ever before and being more connected to their devices than ever before.”
Better technology is also a big factor.
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“As devices have gotten faster, people are more adept using them, people are transacting more on mobile,” said Rod Sides, Deloitte’s retail practice leader.
In addition to getting faster, Sides says larger, better screens are a factor.
Greater use of artificial intelligence and the more effective personalization it allows is helping, according to Rob Garf, vice president of industry strategy and insights at Salesforce Commerce Cloud, who spoke with MarketWatch at the recent Retail Bonfire event.
Advanced payment systems are a factor as well. Where customers used to have to click through screen after screen, things like ApplePay and AliPay make the purchasing process easier.
“Retailers are exposing shoppers to more appropriate product,” he said. “Retailers are teeing up the right product and lowering the friction,” he said.
Seeing the opportunities, retailers have aggressively looked for ways to allow shoppers to use their devices during the shopping process, even when they’re already in the store.
Walmart Inc. WMT, +0.65% , for instance, is making store maps available on the Walmart app during the holiday shopping season.
“This season, we will see a tipping point for mobile commerce as mobile devices will surpass computers for order share and traffic from this point forward,” Salesforce wrote in its holiday report.
The Amplify Online Retail ETF IBUY, -2.73% has gained 11.8% for the year to date, the SPDR S&P Retail ETF XRT, -1.95% has rallied 7.6%, and the S&P 500 index SPX, -0.92% is up 4.2% for the period.
