The Mobile Majority: 60 Percent Of Holiday Traffic Came From Mobile, Says Target

Both Amazon and Target released holiday shopping related statistics this week. Most striking was Target’s statement that a majority of the traffic to its Target.com site was from mobile devices during November and December.

The company said, “Mobile traffic made up 60 percent of Target.com traffic November through December.” In its press release the company also noted other mobile milestones:

• Black Friday weekend purchases made via mobile phones were 2 times higher than 2013
• Cartwheel, Target’s digital coupon app, added 2 million new users over the holiday period and surpassed $1 billion in promotional sales since it launched
• Target.com store-pickup orders hit a new record high on Thanksgiving Day
• Store maps in Target’s new iPhone app were accessed more than 400 thousand times

Amazon, long a mobile leader, announced that “nearly 60 percent of Amazon.com customers shopped using a mobile device this holiday. Mobile shopping accelerated as customers got later into the shopping season.”

Amazon reported that Cyber Monday was its largest mobile shopping day but Black Friday “had the most rapid growth in mobile shopping.” The company added that its total sales from the Amazon smartphone app doubled last year. Not long ago, Amazon mobile entered comScore’s Top 15 US smartphone apps list.

These data support the notion that mobile devices are the center of consumer shopping, despite the fact that the majority of conversions typically happen later on a PC or offline. Retailers without a satisfactory mobile site/app are increasingly vulnerable to lost sales, consumer defections and brand erosion.