eCommerce Traffic From Smart Devices, Q3 2011 – Q4 2012 [CHART]

Chart - eCommerce Traffic From Smart Devices

Smartphones and tablets continue to grow more influential to online retail, according to Monetate’s Q4 2012 e-commerce quarterly report. Traffic from smartphones has jumped from 4.1% share of online shopping sessions in Q4 2011 to 10.7% in Q4 2012, finds the report, while tablets’ share of e-commerce traffic has grown from 4.1% to 9.8%. Overall, then, smartphones and tablets drove 20.6% of total e-commerce traffic in Q4, more than double their 8.2% share from a year earlier. And on Christmas day, which set a record for new device activations, smart devices accounted for a whopping 31.6% of traffic.

In Q4, as in previous quarters, traditional devices (such as PCs and laptops) delivered the highest conversion rate, at 4.45%. Not far below were tablets (3.98%), with smartphones further back with a 1.21% conversion rate. The high-traffic, low-conversion-rate nature of smartphone shopping indicates that the devices are being used more for research than for purchases. Read the rest at MarketingCharts.