Mobile Premier Online Retail Channel For UK Customers

New industry data from the IMRG Capgemini Quarterly Benchmarking report has revealed that 52 per cent of visits to UK retail sites now come from mobile devices.

This is the first time ever that mobile channels have occupied more than half of site visits and further illustrates the extraordinary growth that mobile has experienced in recent years.

The report also found that 36 per cent of online sales in the UK are completed on a smartphone or tablet and, of the £24.2bn spent online between May and July 2014, £8.7bn came via mobile devices.

Tina Spooner, chief information officer at IMRG, said; "With over half of all e-retail traffic now coming via smartphones and tablet devices, the latest Quarterly Benchmarking results reveal a huge landmark in the growth of mobile commerce."

"Considering that as recently as 2010 mobile visits to e-retail sites accounted for less than 3 per cent of traffic, this latest milestone represents staggering growth of 2,000 per cent over the past four years."

Mobile devices are already pushing out the desktop computer in terms of digital media consumption and Alex Smith-Bingham, vice president and digital services leader at Capgemini, believes this trend will also continue in the retail industry.

He said; "As retailers further develop their m-commerce platforms and as the technology becomes increasingly more sophisticated, we'll see the role of the desktop in our day-to-day shopping cycle diminish."

"It will be very interesting to see just how wide the gap between mobile and traditional e-retail will become in 12 months time."