Mobile shopping apps comprise over half of European e-commerce

UK mobile commerce - Woman with mobile phone

A new Criteo report revealed that retailers in Europe are greatly benefiting from dedicated applications.

Criteo has released its Q4 Global Commerce Report which showed that mobile shopping apps are leading to significant successes in Europe. European retailers with dedicated applications are seeing widespread sales.

Retailers have found that making mobile a priority is no longer an option but is quite the necessity.

The report revealed that retailers that placed a priority both on mobile shopping apps and the mobile web, their performance gains are significant. The retailers with a dedicated mobile commerce application found that more than half (54 percent) of their online transactions took place over that application as opposed to their browser based mobile web presence.

The Criteo report also indicated that even when mobile apps were not included in the retail figures, smartphones and tablets still comprised 53 percent of online transactions in the United Kingdom. The European average as a whole was 40 percent.

The report also offered further insight into mobile shopping apps and related shopper activities and habits.

For instance, Criteo’s data revealed that shoppers place a value on the app experience and often have a “mobile first” mindset. Therefore, when retailers offer an omni channel marketing and commerce strategy to their consumers, they tend to experience the greatest successes. The strength of this trend varies from one market to the next, but its importance remains a global one.

The Criteo report showed that mobile apps also feature a conversion rate that is three times greater than that of the mobile web. This suggested that the barriers many people have to shopping on mobile browsers don’t seem to be reflected as powerfully in dedicated mobile commerce applications. While browsers still used for looking at product descriptions, images, reviews and other similar purposes, when it comes to actual conversions into purchases on the same device, the apps win out.

“As smartphone usage continues to soar, increased app adoption and mobile browsing have resulted in interesting omnichannel shopping patterns,” said Criteo chief strategy officer, Jonathan Opdyke. He underscored the way that the firm’s data reveals the importance of mobile shopping apps for driving sales.

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