Mobile Ecommerce Trends For 2023: The Statistics Say It All
Do you remember the days before smartphones? Your blocky flip phone was reserved mainly for making calls and receiving occasional text messages. Looking at current mobile ecommerce trends, we can easily see how far we've come since the old Nokia days.
Nowadays, a multitude of social media and shopping apps are available at your fingertips, keeping your attention firmly on mobile screens. And with access to high-speed internet, mobile ecommerce makes it easy to search, click, and purchase a product while you’re on the go.
While we still use desktop computers or laptops for online shopping, mobile commerce drives online traffic. In 2022, 60.66% of online traffic came from mobile phones, while only 39.34% came from desktops and tablets. Mobile usage is growing every year, and m-commerce has become a serious point of discussion when creating a marketing plan for your business.
Take a look at this chart:
Like most people, probably the first thing you notice is the upward trend in total mobile commerce sales. By 2025, it's expected that more than 10% of all U.S. retail sales will take place via mobile, up from a mere 3.5% in 2018.
What the Statistics Say About Mobile Ecommerce Trends in 2023
A quick online search for “mobile ecommerce trends” will turn up more information than you know what to do with. And that’s a direct result of the ever-increasing size of the global ecommerce market.
While every ecommerce and mobile shopping statistic tells a story, some are more important than others. And that’s especially true if you want to grab hold of the trends that will impact your business in 2023 and beyond.
Below, we share six mobile commerce trends and statistics that are critical to growing your online store in the years to come.
1. Users prefer shopping via mobile versus other channels
According to HubSpot, 59% of shoppers surveyed say that being able to shop on mobile is important when deciding which brand or retailer to buy from.
This statistic is no joke, and here’s why: It shows you that most shoppers tend to navigate toward brands and retailers with a mobile-friendly user experience.
To be sure that you’re taking advantage, here are three points to consider:
- Your online store should be mobile-friendly. Take advantage of Google’s mobile-friendly test to see how your store performs.
- It’s time to consider the pros and cons of launching a mobile site or app (if you’ve yet to do so).
- A poor mobile experience can result in negative reviews, which doesn’t help acquire new customers.
It’s pretty simple. A high-quality mobile experience will result in a high-quality customer experience. And with that, you’re taking a big step forward in building a solid brand reputation.
2. Voice-activated shopping is gaining popularity
With the popularity of voice-activated assistants like Siri, voice shopping is rising in popularity for those who prefer conversing with their smartphones rather than typing in queries. In 2022, voice shopping sales are expected to reach $40 billion in the US and the UK.
When it comes to voice search optimization, here are some ways to improve your online store:
- Find popular queries users ask search engines and use those keywords in your website copy: For example, if you are trying to promote and sell air fryers in your online store, target questions like “what is the best air fryer on the market?” and answer that query in a product page or blog post.
- Add more long-tail keywords into the mix: For example, an “air fryer with stainless steel basket” can help customers further down the sales funnel find what they are looking for and purchase your products.
3. Mobile cart abandonment rate is higher than desktop
According to Barilliance, mobile users have a high shopping cart abandonment rate of 85.65%.
Woah!
Can you imagine your frustration if you find that 85% of shoppers leave your site with at least one item in their cart?
While this can be attributed to many things like slow site speed or a confusing checkout page, here’s what Barilliance has to say:
“The smaller the size of the screen, the more likely a customer is to not purchase. This is problematic considering that, for the first time ever, more digital buyers will use mobile phones than desktops to shop.”
This is problematic. While there’s nothing you can do about screen size, there are some steps you can take to streamline the customer experience:
- Carefully compare ecommerce platforms: For example, Shopify is known for its selection of mobile-friendly themes. On top of this, Shopify grants you access to a free, built-in mobile commerce shopping cart solution. BigCommerce offers similar functionality.
- Pick the best shopping cart solution: Whether yuour ecommerce platform of choice has a shopping cart tool or not, you should research all shopping cart systems out there and make a decision based on which serves your needs most.
- Cut the clutter: The checkout page isn’t a place for clutter. The layout should be clean, easy to navigate, and laid out in a manner consistent with the rest of the online store.
- Offer multiple payment options: Upon arriving at the checkout page, potential buyers will quickly scan to determine if one of the accepted payment methods suits them. The more payment options you give them, the better your chance of completing the sale. In addition to credit cards—which is a must—consider accepting PayPal, Apple Pay (iOS), and Google Play (Android). Cryptocurrency payments can also be an option.
Improving your mobile shopping cart abandonment rate will have a massive impact on sales and revenue.
Check this out: 10 Best Open Source Ecommerce Platforms
4. Customers perceive desktop shopping as more “convenient” than mobile web
Despite the popularity of mobile phones, consumers are four times as likely to state that desktop is more “convenient” than mobile web and only 12% of consumers consider mobile shopping convenient.
These are revealing stats since even though most of us are glued to our mobile phones, some barriers still prevent people from having a seamless mobile shopping experience.
While we can’t control screen size, there are still steps we can take to create a more convenient experience:
- Develop a mobile app: With this, your audience can shop online without the hassles often associated with navigating the web. You have full control over your app experience.
- Take cues from Amazon: We all know that Amazon is the king of ecommerce. So, it’s natural that you can learn a lot from the world’s largest online retailer. With Amazon, you add a product to your cart and click “Buy Now.” No unnecessary, inconvenient steps discourage buyers from completing their purchase. Everything they do is designed with conversion rates in mind.
- Focus on navigation and site search: You can’t expect every visitor to become a repeat visitor. This is why navigation and site search is so important. You want first-time visitors to be able to quickly find what they’re searching for without running into 404 errors.
Tip: Test the online shopping experience personally by searching for an item in your ecommerce store, placing it in your cart, and attempting to checkout. That’ll help you pinpoint any bottlenecks for mobile.
5. Mobile sites that load faster have higher conversion rates
According to Google, mobile sites that loaded in two seconds or less had a 15% higher conversion rate than the average mobile site.
This is an easy statistic to agree with. You want your ecommerce store to be the fastest in your industry.
Test your site on mobile using Google’s free PageSpeed Insights tool:
Regularly checking and upgrading your site speed is a must for ecommerce sites.
This page speed tool breaks down whether or not your website passes Google’s Core Web Vitals assessment for mobile and desktop. You can input any URL, and Google will provide you with a score out of 100 for six core elements that separate a fast website from a slow one.
Here’s a quick breakdown of what these terms above mean, so you understand all the technical jargon:
First Contentful Paint: How quickly can a visitor see an element on your page once they’ve clicked through to view it? This is usually the top of the page which features your logo or main navigation.
Largest Contentful Paint: How long does it take visitors to see the biggest element on your page? For example, this could be an embedded video, slideshow, or show-stopping GIF on your homepage.
First Input Delay: When a visitor starts interacting with your web page and clicks around to explore, how long does it take to perform their desired action? If they click on a button that doesn’t take them anywhere for a long time, your site might have a slow first input delay.
Interaction to Next Paint: If a visitor clicks around rather than taking them to their intended destination, your site becomes unresponsive. This can frustrate visitors and cause them to leave.
Cumulative Layout Shift: Your web pages may behave normally as you scroll down the page, but when you view it on mobile, something strange starts happening. Elements of your site that are supposed to “stick” to the top are falling down, showing up in random spots, or missing altogether. Trust us, you’ll know right away if there are cumulative layout shift issues since the page will look outright wonky.
Time to First Byte: How fast is your web server? If it’s having trouble loading or cannot handle many requests at once, you’ll be able to spot it in this metric.
Seeing more “green” in all 6 of these performance metrics is ideal, but don’t fret if you aren’t seeing a perfect score. This tool allows you to see which elements can be improved upon and help guide you when conducting a website audit. And if you think your website is too slow, know that the average mobile page takes more than 15.3 seconds to fully load. So you are not alone.
6. Almost half of customers are OK with their personal data being used to deliver personalized offers as long as they can opt-out
48% of people say it’s generally acceptable for companies to use their purchase history to deliver personalized offers via mobile so long as they can be opted in and out of.
This is your reminder that having customer data can help create customizable experiences as long as you have their consent.
Experiment with other ways of connecting with your audiences, such as personalized email marketing, social media, and text messaging marketing strategies.
The statistic above tells you two things:
- Nearly half of people are comfortable with you using their online purchase history to deliver personalized offers as long as they can opt-out.
- This practice may put off the other half, so asking for permission during checkout never hurts.
With consent to deliver personalized offers via mobile devices, you have another valuable outlet for reaching your target audience. You can share information about new product launches and services. You can share coupon codes and flash sales. You can provide updates on when new shipments are arriving and build excitement for customers.
Personalized offers have the potential to drive targeted traffic to your ecommerce store. Don’t ignore this important mobile ecommerce trend.
Final Thoughts
It doesn’t matter if you call it mobile commerce, mobile eCommerce, or m-commerce, nothing changes the fact that these trends and statistics will affect the way you manage your online store in 2023.
To sum up the six mobile ecommerce trends:
- A growing number of people want to shop via mobile devices, such as smartphones or tablets.
- Voice-activated shopping will become a major contributor to ecommerce sales.
- A high shopping cart abandonment rate remains a major concern among online retailers.
- Convenience will continue to drive the mobile shopping experience.
- Mobile load speed will continue to affect conversion rates.
- Personalized offers delivered via mobile devices will help set brands apart.
If you want your ecommerce website to thrive, it’s time to go “all-in” on mobile. As long as the current ecommerce industry trends continue, there will soon come a point when nearly every consumer uses a mobile device to shop online. We are already seeing shoppers branch out to shopping online for everything from alcohol to furniture—every industry will be impacted sooner or later. Make sure you position your ecommerce business for even bigger things.
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