Tablets Boosting Online Sales

Tablets are emerging as an effective and key online retailing channel, a new study sponsored by shop.org has found, though one might be tempted to argue that tablets might be less a “showrooming” threat for retailers whose own online sales channels are well developed, and whose products are specialized, though.

At eBags, combined smart phone and tablet purchases now represent 17 percent of traffic overall, and a little north of 12 percent of sales,”  Chris Wilson, eBags CMO says. Traditionally, online shopping has been conducted by people using PCs.

The number of smart phone using their mobiles to visit online retail sites is growing 76 percent year-over-year, the study suggests.

Amazon reports seeing a 117 percent increase in the number of site visitors from mobile phones between Feb. 2011 and Feb. 2012, Walmart a 238 percent increase and JCPenney a 332 percent increase.

Some  64 percent of consumers have used their smart phone for some shopping research activity while 74 percent of tablet owners have done so.

Tablet owners are also more active purchasers, with 34 percent having made at least one purchase from their tablet during the three-month period ended March 2012, while only 17 percent of smart phone owners had done the same.

The report also shows 43 percent of smart phone owners having used their mobile device while in a store for a shopping purpose. About 35 percent of tablet owners have done so, as well.

The study also found that average site conversion rate now is one percent on smart phones and 2.4 percent on tablet devices. As most anecdotal evidence suggests that larger screens, such as PCs, generate more activity, that finding likely will not surprise you.

The majority of retailers surveyed reported that their site conversion rate and the average order value are lower for sales placed using smart phones, compared to sales made using the desktop website. That might be related to the “snacking” way tablets often are used.

However, almost half also reported seeing higher AOV for sales made by tablet devices than on the desktop website.

Just how big the order value “delta” is might vary by retailer. The average order value for an eBags tablet purchase is $159.28, compared to  $134.37 on smart phones.

Mobile usage in stores helps  multichannel retailers, Jeff Klonowski, Recreational Equipment executive believes.“We view the stores as a tremendous opportunity for mobile, both from the employee perspective and the customer perspective.”

For employees, REI has rolled out a mobile version of the store point of sale  using iPod Touch devices, so that store associates can help customers check out.

Over the longer term, REI plans to build out functionality for the store associate to help the customer access store inventory, product reviews and product specifications.

Wilson said that, while they have no direct information, there is “some circumstantial evidence” that eBags is getting traffic from customers who are standing in a store.  

“Entries on a product detail page as a percentage of total are much, much higher on a smart phone than either of the other devices, so it seems to be very targeted and we assume that a certain percentage of that is happening in stores,” Wilson says.


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