43% growth of smartphone users making online purchases

According to comScore’s overview of mobile usage in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK, 1 in 7 people have made a retail purchase using their mobile phones in a month.

The report points out that in the three month average, ending August 2013, Spain had the fastest growth rate of 66.5% (3.3 million smartphone users accessing retail websites on their mobile devices), Italy was second with a 61.3% growth rate (5.6 million) but ranked first in the year-on-year growth of smartphone owners using online retail websites. Germany had the most smartphone users accessing retail websites (9.9 million), with the UK behind her at 9.7 million.

An analysis of popular products purchased via smartphones indicated that clothes and accessories are most popular followed by electronics/household appliances and other products that people reported having purchased via smartphones include books, tickets and hygiene/personal care products.

It is also interesting to note that almost a quarter of respondents like to take photographers of in store products and many will send these records to friends and family for purchasing advice. This does not directly help all you e-merchants out there but it does say something about customer experience and makes the point that human beings are relatively visual, not to mention sensory creatures and thus the consumer likes to have a sensory experience with products before buying them. This means that players in e-commerce need to find the best ways to create those experiences on the screens of their customers.

Image Courtesy of Flickr