M-Commerce Forecast to Dominate Black Friday Sales

Thursday, November 28, 2019 - 14:24 by Paul Tissington

2019 could be the first year in which the majority of sales carried out via safe shopping online on Black Friday are channelled through smartphones and tablets.

This is according to a report published this week by Bloomreach, which anticipates that just over half of e-commerce retail spending over the course of the Black Friday weekend will be down to mobile users committing to purchases on their portable platform of choice.

This prediction is based on trends extrapolated from the same event last year, with mobile use growing ten times faster than traditional desktop and laptop shopping.

Already the days leading up to Black Friday have been something of a success for m-commerce, with mobile devices managing to share the sales equally with desktop PCs. This means that it is easy to agree with the idea that the balance will tip in favour of mobiles when the big day arrives.

Analysts are also forecasting that conversion rates will be better on mobile devices, once again marking a significant shift in consumer habits and also suggesting that retailers are getting much better at optimising their interactions with smartphone users.

In terms of the way that timing will play a role in determining where sales are made, experts anticipate that 11am on the 29th of November will be the point at which the biggest spike in e-commerce site visits will occur. Meanwhile, many consumers will choose to wait until the afternoon to actually commit to a purchase, meaning that a good deal of research is carried out beforehand by Brits.

Plenty of mobile shopping is expected to take place on the way to and from work, with commuters set to make up a large slice of the mobile shopping spend on both Black Friday and Cyber Monday this year.