The Importance of Online Sales being made through Mobile Phones and Tablet Devices

Posted by: Sweety Rai

Monday, June 16th, 2014

The affiliate channel has seen a huge rise in the number of sales being made on tablet and mobile devices in recent months. To give a rough idea of how much of an impact this has had on the affiliate sector, in 2013 81% of our total client sales were generated through computer sales, whilst 16% came through tablet devices and 2% came through mobile. Subsequently, for the first few months of 2014, computers accounted for 69% of client sales, with tablets accounting for almost a quarter of sales (24%) and almost 6% coming through mobile phones.

Patterns spotted with regards to the fashion sector highlight that so far in 2014 there has been a significant increase in clients making an increased number of sales through smartphone purchases. One of our biggest fashion retailer clients saw just 1.6% of its sales come through smartphones in 2013, yet since January smartphone purchases have accounted for 6.5%, indicating a 397% year on year increase in smartphone sales. A similar trend has emerged for a voucher site client of ours, which has seen its sales generated through smartphone increase in percentage from 3% in 2013 to 22%
this year, an increase of 735%.

Similarly, after studying the results of two of the furniture brands on our roster, we noted that one company's sales generated by tablet device purchased had enhanced from 11.4% in 2013 to 17.6% so far in 2014 (a year on year increase of 153%). The second company had also seen a year on year increase of 134% for purchases made through tablets.

Regarding these findings, it is important for those working in an industry as fast-paced and ever changing as affiliate marketing and ecommerce, to constantly try to keep one step ahead of competitors and others working in the field. In order to maintain its existing customers, as well as to attract new individuals, businesses must be able to easily enable customers to buy on devices that are a lot smaller than the more traditional laptop and desktop computers that have traditionally been the means by which people have accessed the internet.

'Responsive design' is the creation of a single website that incorporates design elements that enable it to work with whatever device or operating system or browser a customer is using. The emergence of this has made it easier for merchants to sell their products across a wider spectrum of platforms and as a result will ultimately increase the amount of sales driven in the future.