Adobe 2016 Mobile Retail Report

Adobe's 2016 Digital Insights Mobile Retail report shows that smartphones have seen steady year-over-year (YoY) growth in share of traffic and revenue, conversions have not been high enough to offset the declines in desktop and tablet usage.

Adobe data shows that smartphone traffic to retail sites grew 33 percent YoY, but overall traffic for the average retailer remained flat with desktop and tablet traffic both falling by six and 10 percent, respectively.

While smartphones saw a 65 percent increase YoY in revenue growth, overall online sales revenue increased by only ten percent as desktop and tablet both declined by two percent. Desktop conversions are 2.8 times higher than smartphones and tablet conversions are twice as high.

While many retailers have a sizable smartphone audience, the opportunity now lies in better converting this base and offsetting declines in desktop through great, highly engaging mobile retail experiences. If these experiences do not meet the high consumer expectations around quality and personalization from login through checkout, retailers will miss out on a critical revenue driver. Adobe data shows that if current traffic and revenue trends continue, the average retailer stands to pass on eleven percent of potential revenue over the next fourteen months.

“The shopping cart is a critical page to convert shoppers, but the experience has not been optimized on mobile and it has left many users to either buy less or abandon their carts completely,” said Tamara Gaffney, principal analyst, Adobe Digital Insights. “It will be critical for retailers to better personalize the experience so that users will be compelled to purchase more on their smartphones, while better integrating technologies such as mobile wallets to create a seamless experience within apps and browsers.”

Adobe’s mobile retail report is the most comprehensive and accurate of its kind in industry. Based on analysis of aggregated and anonymous data, Adobe measures 80% of all online transactions from the top 100 U.S. Retailers.* $7.50 of every $10 spent online with the top 500 U.S. retailers go through Adobe Marketing Cloud.** This report is based on analysis of over 290 billion visits from over 16,000 mobile websites, as well as over 85 billion app launches. The complementary survey is based on interviews with over 1,000 U.S. consumers.

Additional findings in the report include:

• Smartphones fall behind on revenue: The average order value (AOV) on desktops ($155) outperformed smartphones ($120) by 35 dollars per order. The revenue-per-visit (RPV) on smartphones is 3.6 times lower than on desktops. Overall, desktops remain the cash cow for retailers driving 75 percent of total revenue with 59 percent of traffic, and smartphones driving just 16 percent of total revenue with 32 percent of traffic. For the upcoming holiday season, Adobe predicts that mobile will exceed desktop shopping visits for the first time at 53 percent in November to December, but only contribute to 34 percent of online sales.
• Smartphone shoppers have lower cart success: During the regular retail season, 26 percent of carts result in an order on desktops, but only 16 percent of carts lead to an order on smartphones. Adobe predicts a slight increase for the upcoming holiday season, with 30 percent of carts resulting in an order on desktops and 19 percent of carts resulting in an order on smartphones. The data indicates that users are running into stumbling blocks on mobile sites. Survey data shows that 60 percent of consumers find smartphones less useful for finding things efficiently than desktops. Consumers cite easier navigation of pages (30 percent) and seeing images better on a bigger screen (26 percent) as the main reasons for switching to desktops to make the purchase.
• Simply having an app doesn’t cut it. The app graveyard is getting larger. Sixty percent of retail apps are used less than ten times. The retail industry experiences the highest abandonment rate compared to other industries including health care (55 percent), media and entertainment (54 percent) and financial services (54 percent). Survey data also shows that 45 percent of consumers use only one to two shopping apps on average, making the entrance into that market difficult. For the upcoming holiday season, 60 percent of consumers say that in general, they plan on using mobile browsers instead of apps for shopping.