Christmas mobile online spend to tip £1bn

Some £920m of sales are expected to transact via mobile gadgets this Christmas

Consulting giant Capgemini predicts that the peak two shopping weeks of Christmas this year will net £4.6bn online for retailers, including £920m bought via mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets.

Tina Spooner, chief information officer at e-retail association IMRG, which produced the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index with Capgemini, indicated that the two peak weeks of online shopping activity, kicking off 3 and 10 December, are expected to account for 26-27 per cent of total online retail sales during the final nine weeks of the year.

This will equate to some £4.6bn of a total £17.4bn in online retail sales predicted for the period.

"What we are seeing in this 20 per cent mobile forecast is a shift in the way that consumers interact with brands online," Spooner said. "While it is still common for consumers to browse the shops at weekends before making the final purchase online on Monday at lunchtime, we are increasingly seeing ‘second-screening', where people browse on their mobile devices in front of the TV."

IMRG had also conducted research with eDigitalResearch recently that suggested 80 per cent of smartphone and tablet owners use their devices that way, Spooner said.

And the proportion of sales via mobile device is gradually increasing – the first quarter of 2012 saw 8.2 per cent of total e-retail sales made through a mobile device and by the end of Q4 the figure is projected to reach 20 per cent, she said.

That estimate is 15 per cent up on the same period last year, according to IMRG and Capgemini.

Get ready now

Chris Webster, head of retail and technology at Capgemini, said retailers would need to gear up for online sales expansion in early December, as well as the in-store sales that traditionally follow.

"We have seen this year that mobile access is a must have, not a nice to have, for retailers, with close to a billion pounds to be spent via mobile devices this Christmas. Indeed, our research with the MIT Center for Digital Business discovered that the most digitally advanced brands are 26 per cent more profitable than competitors," Webster added.

The peak weeks, however, fall one week later than in 2011, because many pay days fall after the final Monday in November this year.

External factors too – such as bad weather – can push more consumers online to do their purchasing, the companies noted.