Salesforce released its fourth quarter shopping index, which marked an increase in consumer spending by way of mobile devices. The report analyzes shopping activity of more than 500 million consumers globally in order to identify new patterns and behaviors.
As part of the methodology, Salesforce reviewed 800 digital commerce sites within 40 countries that accounted for two billion visits. The index reviews growth over a two-year period from the fourth quarter of 2014 to the same period in 2016.
According the research, all digital commerce segments are trending up — it globally increased 19 percent year-on-year. This amounts to an 11 percent increase in all traffic and 8 percent rise in shopper spend per visit. Canada secured the highest digital commerce growth rate — a whopping 49 percent. France had the second highest increase at 25 percent growth. The U.S. and U.K. remained steady at 16 percent each.
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Mobile steadily built on its cornering of consumers’ traffic share. “Phones captured 52 percent of all traffic and 30 percent of orders,” said the report. Social media dominated as retailers and brands get wise to social influencers’ power over consumer spending. “Social was a more important traffic channel, accounting for 4 percent of all traffic and 5 percent of mobile traffic,” the report said.
Perhaps because of concerted, strategic efforts on behalf of retailers and brands to offer captivating, organic content that resonates with shoppers, visit duration — which had fallen in recent years — increased to 6.6 minutes, which is the highest since 2014, the report noted.
Traditional computers still have the majority of order share, though that has decreased 10 percent from 2014 to 2016. This should be compared to mobile’s steady rise over the same period — 16 percent to 30 percent. Tablet usage held the most steady level of order share, falling only 4 percent from 2014 at 16 percent, to 12 percent in 2016.
The report captures the current shopping landscape as consumers shift shopping mediums from computers to mobile devices such as smartphones and refer more to social media to inform their spending.
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