Mobile Shatters Records During 2020 Holiday Shopping Season
by Michelle Lawrence | Last Updated: Jan 14, 2021
Thought 2019’s mobile shopping records couldn’t be beaten? Think again. We always knew mobile shopping would continue to skyrocket. We’ve been predicting this for quite some time now. But our worlds were transformed almost overnight last year. This coupled with consumers’ love for mobile led to a pretty incredible time for mobile. Let’s take a look at the record-breaking success mobile shopping saw during the 2020 holiday shopping season.
Mobile Saves the Day
Turns out, when people are asked to stay home, there’s only so many activities you can choose from...with shopping on a mobile device being one of them. Listen, I’m not complaining about how easy my holiday shopping was this past year. I secured gifts for all of my loved ones from the comfort of my couch this year (and ahead of the game, I might add). Turns out, others had a very similar experience as me.
Before we dive into the 2020 holiday shopping season, let’s take a walk down memory lane to a year before last. 2019 witnessed a 12 percent increase in mobile shoppers during the holiday season. If you thought this was a huge spike, wait until you hear how much it increased this past holiday season.
Mobile shopping increased by 25 percent in 2020. This means mobile commerce accounted for 40 percent of total online spending during Black Friday. Is anyone else’s mind blown a little? And to top it off, time spent on shopping mobile apps also increased by 25 percent in 2020, according to App Annie.
To those that still think mobile isn’t an important channel to invest in, are you wanting to change your answer after reading that?
App-tastic
Consumers couldn’t get enough of mobile apps during the 2020 holiday shopping season. On Black Friday alone, there was a record-breaking 2.8 million shopping apps downloaded by consumers. To no surprise, Amazon was the leading shopping app, followed by Walmart and Wish.
But fear not if you’re not one of these eCommerce giants. Having an exceptional mobile app isn’t off the table. If your mobile app provides customers with an easy way to keep track of their purchases or allows for virtual try-ons, your app could actually be better than the mobile experiences of some of these industry leaders.
What the Future Holds for Retail
What can we learn from the trends of the 2020 holiday shopping season? In short, mobile is not to be underestimated.
It’s reported that 92 percent of consumers are planning to do some sort of shopping after the holidays. To put things in perspective, this number usually hovers around 72 percent. And with our world still looking different than normal, we can expect these eager shoppers to do their retail therapy using their mobile devices.
Is your brand ready to tackle this opportunity? If developing a robust mobile marketing strategy last year wasn’t in the cards (or worse, you had a native mobile app), might I suggest getting your feet wet by creating a Progressive Web App (PWA)? PWAs take up less storage space than native mobile apps, can work offline, have incredible fast load speeds, and look just like a native mobile app. Plus, consumers prefer PWAs anyway.
I’m excited to see more brands fully embrace mobile in 2021. And even though shopping for holiday gifts at home wasn’t exactly a choice this year, I think more and more consumers will grow to prefer mobile as their preferred method for shopping.
Meet with one of our experts to see how easy it is to centralize your product data, manage digital assets, and create digital product experiences. Trust us…you’re going to be wowed.
