Study confirms massive surge in seasonal mobile web traffic to retailers

A NEW study by Novarra, the mobile internet company has confirming a holiday rush to the mobile internet by shoppers.

Traditionally, the approach of Christmas saw the goose getting fat – nowadays it’s more likely that the server is going to overheat and people will have their mobile devices glued to their fingertips! This is confirmed by Novarra’s findings which saw mobile phone web traffic to retailer and shopping info web sites on ‘Black Friday’ (27^th Nov) increase twelve fold and more than double on ‘Cyber Monday’ (30^th Nov) compared to before the holiday shopping season kick off.

The results are based on a sampling of web traffic through Novarra deployments for a variety of ‘brick and mortar’ retailers in the US and UK, including Abercrombie, Argos, Asos, Best Buy, Currys, Debenhams, John Lewis, Macy's, Nordstrom, Sears, Target, Tesco, Topshop and Walmart, as well as e-tailers Amazon and eBay.

Specific findings saw Black Friday beat Cyber Monday in the US: average page view increases via mobile for US retailers were up on average 388 per cent for retailers tracked on Black Friday but only 160 per cent on Cyber Monday.

In the UK, where Black Friday is not a retail event, page views were up a more modest 40 per cent on Friday the 27^th and 23 per cent on Monday the 30^th.

The Black Friday US winners were: bestbuy.com (792 per cent), walmart.com (740 per cent), sears.com (492 per cent) and macys.com (447 per cent). UK retailer argos.co.uk was a standout in that market with a 395 per cent increase.

As expected, traffic to Black Friday ad sites and Cyber Monday shopping sites, including bfads.net and cybermonday.net, skyrocketed nearly 100,000 per cent for the week of November 24-30 as consumers checked for the best “door buster” and online deals, with a steep peak leading up to Black Friday.

“This is further confirmation that consumers increasingly rely on the internet via mobile phones for their daily habits and routines,” said Scott Cotter, senior director of marketing, Novarra. “For many shoppers, browsing special deals, comparing products, pricing and other information while they are on the run - even at a retailer’s location, has become second nature.”

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