Online retailers must provide optimized customer experiences or risk losing sales, according to ShopVisible’s “Influence & Impact” report.
In its report, ShopVisible found that site traffic from mobile devices and tablets significantly increased–accounting for 30% of all visits. Smartphones alone accounted for 15% of traffic in 2013, peaking at 20% in the fourth quarter.
“Our Influence and Impact report serves sellers by helping them make informed decisions about omnichannel commerce trends,” Sean Cook, co-founder and CEO of ShopVisible, said in the report. “Chiefly, mobile commerce is booming so online retailers must provide an optimized experience on all devices or potentially risk losing sales. That’s why retailers such as Plow & Hearth and Case-Mate turn to our SaaS solution, making it easy for them to manage their website, online channels and mobile sites, from just one platform.”
The report also identified an 8% overall increase in site visits and higher overall revenue for ShopVisible’s clients last year. The insights compare data from key performance indicators, such as site traffic and conversions, mobile devices, payment methods and shopping channels from 2012.
The large increase in mobile visits did not correspond with a complementary increase in mobile sales, although the report revealed that when mobile users do purchase, the average order value is comparable to that of desktop users. This likely signals that consumers are increasingly browsing from these devices, but tend to transact more in a traditional browser/web experience.
More than 25% of all online orders were paid for with something other than a credit card, such as PayPal and Amazon Payments, verifying that retailers must have preferred alternate payment options in place to meet the demands of today’s omnichannel customer, the report said.
What’s more, comparison shopping engines (CSEs) such as Google Shopping and PriceGrabber comprise as much as 7% of total online sales among ShopVisible’s retailers that use CSEs.