US m-commerce to reach USD 284 bln, 45 percent of online spending

Still, consumers continue to shop on mobile but buy online. Mobile shopping is conducted via browser rather than apps. Mobile will continue to account for a progressively larger portion of ecommerce, which is also projected to continue its growth.

Mobile accounted for 12% of the USD 303 billion in US ecommerce sales in 2014 but, by 2020, will be 45% of the USD 632 billion in total ecommerce sales, according to the Mobile Checkout Report by BI Intelligence, mediapost.com reports. While US adults spend more their screen time on mobile devices, most of their money is spent on desktop and other channels.

And the growth of digital commerce is outpacing overall retail. While retail sales increase 2% from the same quarter in 2014, digital commerce grew 15%, according to the US Department of Commerce. BI Intelligence estimates that consumers will spend USD 55 billion on mobile, or 16% of total ecommerce by end of 2015, rising to USD 284 billion by 2020.

Despite that, smartphones still are mainly a tool for browsing rather than buying. For example, on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, smartphones made up 45% of online shopping traffic but only 21% of online sales, according to IBM. Consumers spend 59% of their time but only 15% of their money on mobile, according to comScore. That compares to 41% of time and 85% of dollars on the desktop.

Conversion rates on smartphones also are lower than on desktops. Smartphone owners add considerably fewer items to their carts and abandon those carts considerably more often, according to Monetate. Some of the obvious deterrents to mobile purchasing are small screen size, lack of mobile-optimized sites, speed from spotty connections while on the go and perceived lack of security, according to the BI Intelligence report.