Category: Tablet Commerce

Final quarter data has now revealed that nearly a quarter of its online sales were over mobile devices.

QVC has become the latest believer in the success available through m-commerce as it saw an exceptionally strong performance over that channel in the last quarter of 2012.

This represented an increase of 60 percent in its sales over smartphones and tablets.

The QVC parent company, Liberty Interactive Corp., which was listed in the seventh place among the Top 500 for 2012 as identified by Internet Retailer, saw a considerable year end on December 31. According to the statistics included in its recently released report, its revenue had increased overall by 4.2 percent, bringing its total to $10.01 billion. This was an increase over its 2011 total of $9.61 billion.

While QVC saw its overall web performance rise, it was m-commerce that became the true star last year.

The American web sales for the company rose by approximately 10.9 percent, reaching $2.23 billion, when compared to the $2.01 billion from the year before. Its international web sales were not broken down by channel within this report. It did note that its total sales increased by 2.9 percent to $8.51 billion when compared to 2011’s $8.27 billion. Its international sales were up by just shy of that amount, 2.4 percent, reaching $2.93 billion from having been $2.86 billion the year before.

Forty percent of QVC’s American sales for the year were the result of online shoppers, which was a year over year rise of 37.1 percent. In the last quarter, online sales represented 42.7 percent of the total, which was a big jump from the 39.7 percent in the last quarter of 2011.

Where things were truly explosive, though, were in m-commerce in the last quarter. The sales in that channel grew by 109.3 percent in 2012 to reach $175.6 million. In 2011, that figure had been $83.9 million. Last year the mobile sales made up 22.6 percent of all of the online purchases, which was a tremendous leap over the 11.8 percent that they represented in 2011.

Clearly, 2012 was a defining year for m-commerce at QVC, which is bound to continue to push through this channel throughout 2013.

A new report from Foresee has shown that survey participants are almost equally satisfied with the channels.

According to the results of a survey that was performed by Foresee and that were just released in a report by that firm, consumers are becoming increasingly satisfied with mcommerce, to the point that it is approaching the levels felt by desktop shoppers.

The survey was designed to look into the satisfaction felt by visitors to forty of the largest U.K. mobile retailers.

The survey examined the progress of this mcommerce trend over both retail websites and apps in the United Kingdom since 2010. In an area where the average satisfaction score for sites on the regular web in the U.K. was 74 out of a possible 100 points, mobile wasn’t very far behind at all, having received an average experience score of 72.

The difference between mcommerce and desktop has been steadily shrinking over the years.

In fact, over the last three years, that difference has been falling at a rapid rate, from having been five points to its current position at two points. The outcome of the survey has raised two potential possibilities. These are that shoppers are either becoming more accustomed to mcommerce and are therefore naturally feeling more satisfied by their experience over that channel, or retailers have been paying attention to consumer behaviors and have been evolving to improve the mobile experience that they provide.

The report suggested that it is likely a combination of those two factors. That said, whatever the cause, consumers are indeed feeling happier with the mcommerce experience that the leading retailers have to offer. At the same time, it is also implying that businesses that are not providing any mobile platform are possibly missing out on a tremendous opportunity to reach consumers in an area where those shoppers are feeling increasingly comfortable.

The research placed the spotlight on the fact that most online shopping remains on the standard web, using desktops and laptops, as opposed to mcommerce. Eighty seven percent of the respondents used a home computer for shopping online. Only 12 percent shopped with a smartphone and only 9 percent used a tablet.