M-commerce traffic could outpace desktop visits this Christmas

Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - 10:46 by Graham Miller

The growth in the ownership and usage of smartphones and tablets in the UK has helped to boost the number of purchases made online in recent months. But now, retailer John Lewis has predicted that m-commerce visitors will generate the majority of traffic for the first time on December 25th 2013.

On Christmas Day each year, millions of Brits use the web to make purchases, because of course most high street outlets are closed and people usually have a lot of gift certificates and festive cash to spend.

During this day in 2012, John Lewis reports that close to half of all visitors to its site were using a mobile device, but it believes that this group will breach the 50 per cent mark in 2013.

Spokesperson, Mark Lewis, said that m-commerce would be one of the big players in safe shopping online this Christmas. He was also on hand to announce the launch of the firm's fresh m-commerce app designed for the Apple iPad, which of course, is intended to make more tablet owners shop with John Lewis than ever before.

Mr Lewis said that consumers are not afraid to part with serious amounts of cash using their smartphones, with one customer spending £7,000 on a television set while out and about, thus holding the current record for the biggest single price tag for a product sold through m-commerce.

One of the things which keeps people on their mobile phones rather than a desktop or laptop PC at Christmas is that they can hang around with the family and even travel from place to place, while still having access to shopping platforms.

Last year, mobile traffic peaked at 10pm, although Boxing Day was actually even busier still, which is a trend that could be repeated in 2013.