Desktop Dominates E-Commerce Sales – 3 To 1

Fourth-quarter data from MarketLive shows that desktop shopping is still dominating e-commerce sales by three-to-one, eMarketer reports.

Not only does desktop/laptop shopping account for a majority of e-commerce traffic (55.7 percent), it also makes up a majority of total retail e-commerce revenue (75.1 percent). According to the research report, smartphones account for 11.2 percent of e-commerce revenue, and tablets account for 13.7 percent. In contrast, smartphones account for 29.9 percent of total e-commerce traffic, whereas tablets account for just 14.4 percent of total e-commerce traffic.

When looking at the total number of orders made by desktop/laptops versus smartphones and tablets, the computer category accounted for 73.9 percent of total e-commerce orders. To compare, smartphones account for 12.5 percent of all orders and tablets accounted for 13.6 percent, according to the report. Revenues, on average, per visit were also much higher on computers versus smartphones ($3.77 average versus .97 on smartphones; tablets averaged $2.40 for order value). Bounce rates from e-commerce site was lower for computer e-commerce (33 percent), compared with 47 percent for smartphone and 37 percent for tablets, and those stats showed that conversion rates for desktop/laptop e-commerce was higher as a result.

“Though mobile shoppers accounted for 75.9 percent of all U.S. digital shoppers in 2014, and mobile buyers for 63.7 percent of digital buyers. …MarketLive found that nearly 56 percent of traffic to retail sites came from non-mobile sources, as did three-quarters of revenues,” eMarketer reported.

What’s most striking, however, in the figures is what it reveals about one of the largest problems for e-commerce retail — cart abandonment — when comparing the three types of devices. Smartphones and tablets had far higher cart abandonment rates than desktop as the report shows smartphones have a 81 percent abandoned cart rate and tablets recorded a 75 percent cart abandonment. Desktop/laptops registered at 64 percent in that category. Looking toward abandoned checkout rate, desktop/laptop rates are also lower at 36 percent, compared to smartphone rates of 59 percent abandoned checkouts and tablets at 46 percent.