According to TechCrunch, online spending was up 24% on Black Friday 2011 compared to 2010. That is a big increase, and it’s expected to grow again at a similar rate next year.
But what about mobile?
PayPal reported a 516% increase in mobile payments year over year on Black Friday. Kind of puts the growth in the online space to shame.
Total mobile traffic was 14.3% of all retail online traffic – up from 5.6% in 2010. No surprise that Apple devices were #1 (iPhone) & #2 (iPad) with Android coming in third. Somewhat interesting is that mobile ‘buyers’ were laser focused – meaning they didn’t bounce around from site to site before making a purchase. This may suggest that they had done their research before hand on a regular computer, or maybe they didn’t want to bother with comparison shopping on a small device…regardless, they spent money & did it quickly.
This data is a strong indication that this Christmas season we should expect to see similar increases over last year, and next year it will be even greater as the population of smart phone users continues to grow.
If you own an e-commerce website, or ANY website for that matter and don’t have a mobile strategy plan, NOW is the time to get one.