As the retail world staggers past the downturn, every so often there’s a bright spot or two. We see a trend in retail we’re calling ‘ME Buying’. Mobile and Ecommerce are on a tear that cannot be ignored by anyone who has something to sell.
Desktop-based e-commerce sales totaled $49.8 billion in the U.S. during the second quarter of this year. According to a new report from comScore, this represents an almost 16% increase from about $43.1 billion in the second quarter of the previous year.
This also marks the 15th consecutive quarter of positive year-over-year growth and 11th consecutive quarter of double-digit growth. Mobile commerce spending rose by $4.7 billion, or 24%, during the quarter. Other highlights of comScore’s data include:
- The top-performing online product categories were: Apparel & Accessories, Digital Content & Subscriptions, Sport & Fitness, Consumer Packaged Goods and Home & Garden. Each category grew at least 19 compared to a year ago
- E-commerce accounted for 9.6% of consumers’ discretionary spending, the highest second quarter share on record
- Apparel & Accessories was the highest grossing m-commerce product category with more than $700 million in Q2 sales, followed by Computer Hardware and Digital Content & Subscriptions
We’ve said it before but mobile is ripe for growth. As the penetration of smartphones continues to increase, amount of time spent on mobile devices jumps and quality of mobile experience improve…more consumer dollars will be transacted via m-commerce.
Who wouldn’t want to be a part of that?
