According to eMarketer's latest forecasts, worldwide business-to-consumer (B2C) ecommerce sales will increase by 20.1% in 2014, reaching $1.500 trillion. In the US, 12% of overall ecommerce revenue is now made up of mcommerce sales according to BI Intelligence. The leading UK mobile retailer Argos received £ 400m in mcommerce sales, accounting for 10% of their overall online sales. However, on average the top 20 UK retailers have 5% of revenue coming from mcommerce according to the 2013 Internet Retailer Global Mobile 500.
"In Europe, some retailers are still arguing the importance of mobile as a significant source of revenue, yet leading UK retailer Argos generated £ 400 million in mccomerce last year, accounting for 10% of overall ecommerce revenue. The increase in ecommerce revenue overall is masking the loss of revenue through poorly converting mobile websites," said Arish Ali, Skava CEO and Co-founder "Simply creating a mobile website is no longer efficient, but retailers must build mobile optimized websites with a conversion-first approach. The launch of a mobile website is not the end of a retailer's mobile strategy, but just the beginning. Like e-commerce websites before them, they require constant updates based on analysis of user behavior to create a seamless shopping experience."
In the 2013 Mobile 500 report published by Internet Retailer, only 20 UK retailers made the list. But these leading UK retailers saw an average of 2% on mobile compared to 4.3% on desktop.
"Mobile is the fastest growing sector of ecommerce, yet our data shows that retailers have still to adapt to the changing landscape," added Paul Morrison, UK Country Manager, Skava. "Mcommerce has increased 78% in the last year and the innovative retailers which have moved beyond their first-generation 'static site scraped' to a conversion-driven design are reaping the rewards."
To highlight the financial implications for retailers not optimising their websites for mobile, Skava developed the SkavaONE Calculator. By using a retailer's average order value (AOV), traffic and conversion rates from all platforms, the SkavaONE Calculator rapidly informs retail executives on the serious long-term financial implications for retailers with under-performing mobile commerce experiences.