For those who were living under a rock during the past few weeks, online sales are skyrocketing this holiday season. Black Friday and Cyber Monday alone represent the No. 1 and No. 3 all-time highest days for online sales, totaling a combined $3.28 billion, according to Adobe's Digital Index. To put that into perspective, it's more than the annual profits of Coca-Cola, Xerox, Radioshack, CBS, Southwest Airlines, JC Penny, and Petsmart -- combined.
While this growth is pretty much in line with recent trends in online sales, a stat that should really stand out from Cyber Monday is the increase in mobile. Mobile sales grew 234 percent compared to Cyber Monday 2011, reaching $436 million. This quick shift is a large indicator of the coming mobile avalanche, and is a barometer for migrating consumer habits.
It's not so much that people are truly buying that much more, but that their consumption habits are beginning to shift.
A Mobile State of Mind
Mobile growth
While it may seem like everybody has a smartphone, the truth is, smartphone adoption is nowhere near its peak. In the United States alone there are more than 110 million people who still have yet to own their first smartphone.
Tablets, on the other hand, are skyrocketing in growth, reaching 40 million in the US in 2012. In only three years on the market, tablets have reached a market penetration that took smartphones nine years.
Skyrocketing Sales
Usage behavior is transitioning, purchasing will soon follow
Rapid growth of mobile device ownership is only half of the story. Consumer habits are quickly shifting as more people begin to use their smartphone and tablet as their first, or only, form of Internet interaction. So far, purchasing power has yet to catch up to overall usage of mobile devices. However, this trend can't last forever, and when you dive into the numbers, you can see that the 22 percent of sales that occurred via mobile devices is a foreshadowing of this shift.
Market research firm comScore estimates that in the fourth quarter of 2012, between 12 percent and 13 percent of online transactions will occur via mobile device.
In a recent report, the IDC projected that by 2015, more Internet users will access the web via a mobile device than by wireline devices, and by 2016, there will 225 million PC users versus 265 million users of mobile devices.
The trend is also expected to expand beyond retail consumption and into schools. In April 2012, the FCC projected that if schools were to replace textbooks with tablets, the total savings for US schools would be $3 billion per year -- essentially half the cost of purchasing textbooks.
While it's hard to say for sure what will happen, the numbers from Cyber Monday certainly seem to indicate that the shift is actually happening faster than many of the projections indicate.
These are impressive numbers. We live in mobile world and there is still room to grow. The more we use mobile devise the more we will be vulnerable on those devices. We have to increase awareness around mobile security.
Going mobile is definitely convenient and enhances productivity. So the numbers you allude to are in the right direction. A trend that can only grow in the foreseeable future.
Usman - There will be those who prefer reading real books to ebooks, but the trend is in the other direction. I expect in a generation paper books will be a boutique product, like opera and ballet.
The mobile Internet is beginning to resemble the commercial web in the middle 1990s. It's a gold rush. I wonder when mobile will overtake the desktop Internet?
@Mitch - I think smartphones has a huge upside in developing countrys-- because old wired infrastructure is sporadic or simply doesn't exist. As mobile internet usage increases both at home and abroad they can definitely exceed that of the desktop internet sometime inthe future.
Yes, it is definitely an adjustment from paperback to tablet reading, but like you Kim I don't have a problem with my tablet being a strain thus far. I do like the convenience of of downloading my books and if the is really good, I will buy it and add it to,my library.
You maybe right about physical books going away, but that will not happen until a universal format is determined. Until that time, physical books will be the only true archival format.
The ThinkerNet does not reflect the views of TechWeb. The ThinkerNet is an informal means of communication to members and visitors of the Internet Evolution site. Individual authors are chosen by Internet Evolution to blog. Neither Internet Evolution nor TechWeb assume responsibility for comments, claims, or opinions made by authors and ThinkerNet bloggers. They are no substitute for your own research and should not be relied upon for trading or any other purpose.
The Internet is displacing cable for a growing number of individuals, families, and businesses. More people are opting to become zero TV homes, which means they get TV service, not in the traditional ways, but via the Internet.
I recently stumbled across a great infographic from Zing Broadband that got me thinking about a topic that I believe we should all begin to seriously consider: Should Internet access be treated as a public utility?
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
Techies are going crazy over the possibility that Google might design and sell its own Android phone. Some writers say it's a very big deal. Reiter questions whether it will happen and, if it does, whether it even matters.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The automotive website uses propensity modeling of customer behavior to convert more site visitors into leads, says Brian Baron, director of business analytics, in an interview at the Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
Companies need to take advantage of new technologies to simplify interfaces, improve capabilities, and enhance back-office processes. But they can't upgrade their Websites too often.
A survey by JD Powers found that customer interest in product features is lessening as phones evolve. Rather than features, price is driving purchases, and that change could have a dramatic impact on how IT departments secure these devices.
Recently, Amazon was recognized for its customer satisfaction excellence. It has made no secret that being customer-centric is a primary goal. This should be the goal of every e-tailer that wants to build market share.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
Expert Integrated Systems: Changing the Experience & Economics of IT In this e-book, we take an in-depth look at these expert integrated systems -- what they are, how they work, and how they have the potential to help CIOs achieve dramatic savings while restoring IT's role as business innovator. READ THIS eBOOK
your weekly update of news, analysis, and
opinion from Internet Evolution - FREE! REGISTER HERE
Wanted! Site Moderators Internet Evolution is looking for a handful of readers to help moderate the message boards on our site – as well as engaging in high-IQ conversation with the industry mavens on our thinkerNet blogosphere. The job comes with various perks, bags of kudos, and GIANT bragging rights. Interested?
To save this item to your list of favorite Internet Evolution content so you can find it later in your Profile page, click the "Save It" button next to the item.
M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
Email This
