Mobile traffic to e-commerce sites rose from 3 percent to 37 percent in the last 4 years

According to the new Custora E-Commerce Pulse Mobile Report, in the past four years the percentage of traffic to e-commerce sites from mobile devices (phones and tablets) jumped from 3 percent to nearly 37 percent, while US mobile e-commerce sales grew from $2 billion in 2010 to $43 billion in 2013.

The Custora E-Commerce Pulse Mobile Report analyzed data from more than 100 retailers, 70 million consumers and $10B in transaction revenue to gain a deeper level of understanding as to which mobile e-commerce trends marketers should pay the closest attention to.

Highlights of the report include:

• US mobile e-commerce is a $40 billion market, poised to hit $50 billion in 2014. In the past four years, the mobile e-commerce market grew nineteenfold: From $2.2 billion in 2010 to $42.8 billion in 2013. This represents 1875 percent growth over four years, and 111 percent four-year CAGR. 2014 is off to a strong start with $12.2 billion in mobile e-commerce sales in Q1 alone; it’s likely that mobile e-commerce will hit $50 billion in 2014.
• Amazon and Samsung are challenging Apple’s e-commerce supremacy. Over the last two years, iPhone's share of e-commerce orders from mobile phones decreased from 75 percent in 2012 to 54 percent as of March 2014. Samsung phones have grown their share of phone orders over the same time period from 7 percent to 31 percent. iPad still accounts for 80 percent of tablet e-commerce orders, though share of orders made from Samsung tablets increased from 2 percent in 2012 to 12 percent as of March 2014. Amazon has also quickly become an important player, with purchases made on Kindle Fire tablets now accounting for 4.1 percent of all tablet orders.
• Email marketing drives mobile purchases; social media not so much. Email marketing drove 27 percent of sales on mobile phones, compared to only 21 percent on desktop, and 23 percent on tablet. This is a surprising data point considering the challenges of displaying email correctly on mobile devices, and deep-linking into mobile apps. Social media accounted for only 0.6 percent of sales on phones and 0.2 percent on tablets.
• Cross-device shoppers are a small but highly valuable customer segment. As of Q1 2014, just 12 percent of online shoppers make purchases on more than one device type, however this represents significant growth from only 4 percent in 2012. This customer segment is also 19 percent more valuable, in terms of customer lifetime value, than the average single-device shopper.