Mobile shopping continues to be a dominant force for consumers, quickly taking the lead with shoppers researching, comparing prices and sharing their choices online in one place.
By early 2024, mobile spending will have grown so much that it will rival desktop shopping. Adobe Analytics, which analyzed online commerce transactions spanning one trillion visits to U.S. retail sites and 100 million stock units across 18 product categories, predicts a tipping point in the coming months.
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Mobile shopping has been a dominant force over the past year, particularly during the upcoming holiday season. And by 2025, Adobe predicts that mobile commerce will quickly surpass desktop purchases in the non-holiday months.
The trend toward mobile spending has grown slowly but steadily—during the 2021 holiday season, 43 percent of online sales were made through mobile commerce. However, consumer sentiment has shifted to demand faster and more convenient transactions, which has been a key driver of the rise in mobile payments. For the upcoming 2024 holiday season, Adobe predicts that 53 percent of online sales will be made through mobile devices.
In January 2024, mobile purchases accounted for nearly 47 percent of all online sales, and by July 2024, that number rose to nearly 49 percent. The average share of mobile spending averaged nearly 48 percent over the past seven months – that’s $280.4 billion spent on mobile devices from January to July of this year, a year-over-year growth of 10.2 percent.
Another key driver was the rise of promotional events, where mobile spending exceeded desktop spending during major shopping events such as Amazon’s Prime Day and the Fourth of July and Memorial Day sales.
The rise in mobile spending has fueled the rise of e-commerce categories such as grocery and personal care, including cosmetics. Adobe Analytics reports 77 percent of online sales coming from mobile in July 2024 and growth in cosmetics of $22.6 billion, up nearly 8 percent year-over-year. Mobile spending is also a dominant force in apparel, with mobile spending accounting for nearly 61 percent of July 2024.
Large retailers (defined as $1 billion or more in annual revenue) have seen an increase in the number of shoppers using mobile devices, which accounts for nearly 53 percent of online sales on average each month. However, this is in contrast to smaller retailers (defined as $10 million to $100 million in annual revenue), where mobile checkouts account for 43 percent on average each month. Therefore, there is an opportunity to increase sales – as mobile spending is considered a major factor in impulse purchases.
“Data from Adobe Analytics shows that consumers have embraced mobile shopping for more frequent and less expensive purchases. However, we expect larger purchases to also shift to smaller screens,” said Vivek Pandya, principal analyst at Adobe Digital Insights. “Adobe data also shows that basket sizes on mobile are 32 percent smaller than on desktop. This presents both a challenge and an opportunity for brands to improve the mobile experience and close the gap to increase sales.”
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