European Nations Take Pole Position in Mobile Shopping

Thursday, September 5, 2019 - 11:12 by David Aiken

A larger proportion of people from Europe are carrying out safe shopping online from their smartphones than on any other continent, according to the results of a survey from Bazaarvoice.

Analysts found that just over two-thirds of retail site visits generated by European consumers come from portable devices, easily eclipsing desktop browsing and also outdoing other regions.

In North America, for example, just 59 per cent of traffic sent to e-commerce outlets originates from smartphones and tablets.

Interestingly enough, the report also found that consumers are chiefly choosing to browse shopping sites from their mobiles while they are visiting bricks and mortar stores, indicating that many people prefer a combination of physical and digital retail experiences.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it is the under-25s who are the most ardent users of m-commerce platforms, although they are also more likely to do so while visiting high street outlets than their Millennial counterparts.

The upshot of this is that while people aged between 25 and 35 are less attached to bricks and mortar retail outlets, younger people are veering back in the other direction and following in the footsteps of the over-65s by supporting real-world stores, even if they are doing so with their smartphones in tow.

32 per cent of the British respondents to the report said that they still focus most of their retail spending on shopping mall venues, which is well above the 26 per cent average seen for this activity when taken on a global scale.

There are a number of distinct behavioural differences distinguishing consumers from different parts of the world, and even within Europe itself the UK stands out as a bastion of online shopping, both in terms of mobile sales as well as the persistent use of desktop-based devices.