IBM Expects Mobile Browsing Will Drive Online Sales Growth During Thanksgiving Break
A study conducted by IBM projects another strong finish this holiday season for online retailers — with mobile browsing being a primary driver of this growth.
According to Big Blue’s analysis — which was based on billions of online and in-store transactions analyzed by the IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark and IBM Quarterly Retail Forecast — online sales are expected to increase 15 percent over the five-day period between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday. The biggest increase in online sales is expected on Cyber Monday (15.8 percent), followed by Thanksgiving (15.6 percent), the study found.
Mobile browsing is expected to account for 48.2 percent of all online traffic over the five-day period, an increase of 23 percent over last year. Mobile sales are also expected to increase, accounting for 24.4 percent of all online sales, up 9.5 percent year-over-year.
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“Without question, this will be a strong holiday shopping season, supported by the power of Big Data and analytics, which are helping brands better understand their consumers and make crucial decisions in real-time,” said Jay Henderson, director of strategy at IBM ExperienceOne, in a statement.
Additional predictions in the report include:
- IBM predicts approximately 53 percent of online shopping on Thanksgiving will come from a mobile device, up 23 percent year-over-year.
- The company estimates that 35 percent of all email click-throughs will happen on a mobile device.
- Smartphones will continue to lead in mobile browsing over the five-day shopping period, accounting for 29 percent of all online traffic versus 15 percent for tablets — but tablets will account for twice as many mobile purchases than smartphones.
“Regardless of industry or time of year, the data the IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark provides is an example of the type of advanced analytics and cloud-based technologies competitive brands rely on to improve consumer engagements and overall performance,” Henderson said.
Big Blue last month snagged the number one spot in the growing cloud services market, according to the 2014 Talkin’ Cloud 100, which ranks the world’s top cloud service providers, aggregators, brokers and more according to cloud revenues and other metrics. Companies on this annual list are ranked based on an internal formula that places heavy weighting on recurring cloud revenues.
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