More Holiday Shoppers Made Mobile Purchases This Season

Consumers aren’t just using their mobile devices to browse; they are also making purchases at a higher rate, according to NetElixir.

According to a report, citing data from search marketing firm NetElixir, the conversion rate from mobile devices during the holiday season increased to 1.45 percent from 1.15 percent in the year-earlier period. NetElixir, which based its analysis on 90 million visits to retailer websites, said consumers are still spending more when shopping on desktops compared to mobile phones and tablets. NetElixir found the average order value on mobile purchases decreased 5.4 percent.

“Due to an increase in mobile conversions, the average order value went down,” said NetElixir CEO and Founder Udayan Bose in the report. “Think of it this way: more purchases, but less spend per purchase.”

NetElixir found that overall purchases done via a mobile device made up 31.3 percent of eCommerce sales during the holidays. That compares to just under 30 percent in the year-ago period. This holiday season, mobile represented 54 percent of the traffic compared to 51 percent last year. NetElixir estimated that eCommerce sales from Thanksgiving to Christmas Day increased 10.4 percent from last year. This is slower than the 13 percent growth reported in 2015 and 2014.

“We attributed the conservative growth figures this year to several factors, like earlier-than-usual holiday shopping with major online events, like Amazon’s Prime Day, consumers using their mobile devices to purchase yet making less-expensive purchases on mobile and to the uncertain political environment,” said Bose.

NetElixir also found that, between Thanksgiving and Christmas Day, the impressions on advertisements increased 35.7 percent, and conversion rates were 18.6 percent higher. The cost per click increased 1.6 percent on average, noted the report. The most popular time to buy was from 12:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., at which greater than 35 percent of orders were made, noted the report.