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Report: Big sales days reflect big smartphone, mobile consumer use

The top retail sales days of the holiday season reflect increasing consumer adoption and reliance on smartphone and mobile device use, according to a new report.

Published

Dec. 18, 2015

The top retail sales days of the holiday season — Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday — reflect increasing consumer adoption and reliance on smartphone and mobile device use, according to a new report.

More shoppers than ever used mobile phones, with a 45 percent jump in the number of shopping sessions and a 16 percent boost in mobile conversion rates, according to Moovweb’s 2015 Mobile Holiday Shopping Report.

The report tracked key e-commerce metrics during Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday for more than 30 retail market leaders, representing a cross-section of industries, including apparel and accessories; jewelry; health and beauty; consumer electronics; home and garden; and gifts.

"The shift from desktop to mobile is completely apparent this holiday season and it will serve as a warning sign for other industries to go mobile,” said Haresh Kumar, VP of marketing at Moovweb. “More retailers have embraced mobile in an effort to engage with their customers, as customer interaction is no longer relegated [to] behind the counter but at any given moment. And, we saw consumer behavior shift from mostly searching and browsing on mobile to making purchases on mobile at a much higher rate at all hours.”

Some key insights from the report include:

  • Shoppers binged on mobile phones during Black Friday, resulting in a year-over-year mobile revenue increase of more than 95 percent. The vast majority of mobile consumers were iPhone users. Tablets use saw a 10-percent drop in sessions resulting in a 13 percent decrease in revenue for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
  • Shoppers relied on smartphones to an even greater degree than last year for Thanksgiving and Black Friday shopping. This year's Thanksgiving Day contribution to revenue was 7 percent lower than that of Black Friday. For some industries such as apparel and accessories, Thanksgiving online sales grew compared to Black Friday, but overall Black Friday remained the bigger shopping day.
  • The Southeast proved to be highest converting region during Cyber week while the Northeast had the lowest conversions. 

The report analyzed a total of 13,487,628 visits across a sample of 30 U.S. retailer sites from Thursday, Nov. 26, through Monday, Nov. 30.