Though many US digital buyers use mobile devices to purchase clothing, a large majority still heavily rely on desktop, July 2016 research revealed.
Internet marketing services company Criteo surveyed 1,536 US digital buyers ages 18 and older who had bought apparel online. Nearly nine in 10 respondents said they had used a desktop device to purchase apparel in the past 12 months. And more than six in 10 used mobile devices—including smartphones and tablets—to purchase apparel. Clearly desktop is still the dominant device used for many, but mobile follows not too far behind.
For digital buyers who use just one device to shop, though, desktop was more dominant : 48% of digital apparel buyers said they had usedonly desktop PCs to do so in the past year. To compare, 9% only used a smartphone and 3% only used a tablet.
For the most part, mobile users used multiple devices to purchase clothing. For example, Criteo found that 87% of tablet apparel buyers purchased apparel on other devices as well. And 79% of smartphone apparel buyers purchased apparel on multiple devices.
Separate research from Magnetic and Retail Touchpoints found that desktop was the leading platform internet users in North America not only used to research, but to make purchases as well. More than two-thirds of respondents said they used a desktop to research products and 58% said they use a desktop to purchase products.
Nonetheless, mobile is certainly affecting the traditional path to purchase. According to eMarketer, mobile commerce had a breakthrough year in 2015, and this year, US retail commerce sales are expected to reach $123.13 billion, a 39.1% increase over 2015—and more than double the amount in 2014. The bulk of this growth is happening on smartphones. Smartphone retail mcommerce in the US nearly doubled in 2015 to $39.40 billion.
Tablets retain the majority of mcommerce sales, albeit barely, at 50.6% in 2016, eMarketer found. Although tablets’ growth rate will be a still-robust 30.7%, it will not be fast enough to keep up with smartphones’ growth. By the end of 2017, smartphones will account for half of all retail mcommerce sales, surpassing that of tablets for the first time.