Purchases made with mobile devices almost doubled in the first quarter, according to IBM Corp.’s online retail economic indicator, to more than 13 percent of total online retail sales.
That”™s up from 7 percent in the first quarter of 2011. In fact, 17 percent of all online sessions on a retailer”™s site were initiated from a mobile device, up from 6 percent in the first quarter of last year. And in March alone, online buying rose 6 percent.
“This is the first study of its kind,” said Jay Henderson, strategy director, IBM digital marketing. “This is really the first time we”™ve ever done this outside of the holidays. And we see that the trends during the holidays continued into the first quarter.”
And people came away with a positive feeling about their digital buying experience. The convenience of this type of buying earned a positive sentiment rating of almost 66 percent. Value got a 52 percent positive sentiment rating, and deals a 30 percent rating. Henderson said researchers analyze text from blogs and Twitter to draw these conclusions.
The most popular items were health and beauty products and home goods.
Negative sentiment was highest for availability, at 24 percent. Henderson said the stronger than expected holiday shopping season created shortages of some products.
Apple”™s IPhone was the number one driver of mobile device retail traffic.
