New world beckons

Fresh research has uncovered some concerning new truths for retailers on modern consumer shopping habits.

The study, by online marketing agency Dgm, has revealed that consumer behaviour is outpacing the rate businesses are adopting a mobile-friendly shopper experience, with data showing businesses could be losing sales as a result.

The Dgm Mobile Report shows that, while Australia has a very high penetration of mobile devices – 65 per cent for smartphones and over 20 per cent for tablets, both well above levels in the US and UK – only around 60 per cent of businesses have a mobile optimised website.

Dgm general manager John Matthews said while Australia is driving a higher proportion of clicks from smartphones and tablets, sales percentages are the same or below those being experienced in the UK.

“This is being driven by the fact that a higher proportion of advertisers in the UK have mobile optimised websites and shows there is a real opportunity in Australia to close the gap by offering a better shopping experience to the consumer,” he said.

The research by Dgm also discovered some interesting facts relating to conversion rates on mobile devices.

According to the data, desktop still dominates each category as a percentage of total clicks. Fashion, retail, books and health & beauty are the strongest verticals for mobile. While technology and travel are still predominantly driving clicks from desktop at 85 per cent and 90 per cent respectively.

The company said this could be explained by the 'showrooming' phenomenon, where consumers are researching prices while shopping in offline stores to compare prices/deals.

Other highlights in the report include:

• Fashion and books have the strongest mobile contribution to overall sales, with 12 per cent and 9 per cent respectively. These are also the two verticals with the lowest Average Order Value across the data collected.

• 18 per cent of all health & beauty sales are driven by tablet, while technology is still predominantly driven by desktop with 94% of all sales being driven by the PC.

• Books enjoy the highest on- site conversion rates across all mobile and tablet, due to the lower average basket value.

• For fashion and travel the on-site conversion rates for tablet are higher than other device types.

• Travel is the only category where mobiles have a higher conversion rate than desktop.

The data in the report has been collected across 190 campaigns, delivering over 175,000 sales transactions and over $20 million AUD in validated sales revenue. All data for this report was collected from May – September, with future updates to the market to be released quarterly.