The Mobile Web Is Creating New Winners And Losers In Retail

When discussing the opportunity in smartphones and tablets, the e-commerce industry often forgets that retailers need both apps and mobile websites to thrive. In a recent BI Intelligence report, we dug into mobile habits among audiences of the top e-commerce properties, and benchmarked retailers against one another in terms of mobile site performance.

• Overall, the mobile web is a more popular portal, especially for traditional retailers. Some traditional retailers skew dramatically toward the mobile site. Home Depot and Best Buy see nearly 100% of time spent on mobile via the browser, despite also marketing their apps.
• Etsy is an online-only retailer that sees more browser engagement, at 63% of time spend.
• Mobile site performance is all over the place: Sears, the retailer with the fastest-loading mobile site, saw about six out of every 10 minutes of mobile time spend happening on the mobile website. Sears also notably sees a greater share of mobile-only visitors than either Amazon, eBay, Walmart, or Etsy. (See chart, above.)

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Here are more of the key findings from the report:

• 58% of mobile retail dollars going to the top 500 mobile retailers will come from the mobile web this year, with in-app purchases accounting for the rest, according to Internet Retailer.
• The mobile web is also how many consumers prefer to shop on a mobile device. 51% of shoppers were more interested in shopping on the mobile web over apps on their smartphones in 2013, according to Adobe data.
• The mobile browser, which is often a gateway to retailer sites, is an important first stop for shoppers using their smartphones in a store. 82% of smartphone shoppers say they use a mobile browser's search function to research products when they're in a store, according to a 2013 study conducted by Google. Another 62% say they go directly to a retailer's mobile website, while only 21% use a retailer's mobile app in a store.
• Yet, despite the mobile web's importance to shoppers, retailers under-utilize their resources for selling through this popular shopping channel. Only 60% of the top 100 global retailers have a dedicated mobile website. In fact, 32% are still showing mobile users a desktop-optimized version of their website on mobile devices. And only nine of the top 100 retailers have a responsively designed site, the format recommended by Google.

In full, the report:

• Looks at how shoppers use the mobile web during different stages leading up to a purchase
• Identifies what leads consumers to use a mobile shopping app versus a mobile site, and vice versa
• Examines how retailers should leverage both the mobile web and apps
• Benchmarks the performance of top mobile retailers and their competitors
• Notes the wide variation in how retailers' audiences are breaking down between the brower and the app

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Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through his personal investment company Bezos Expeditions.