Ho ho ho. New statistics from IBM's Digital Analytics Benchmark Hub suggest that mobile shopping was big on Christmas Day this year—just in case all those presents Santa left under the tree weren't enough to wet your whistle.
According to IBM, online sales were up 8.3 percent this year compared to Christmas Day last year. Online shopping traffic mostly consisted of mobile devices—smartphones and tablets—versus desktops or laptops, and mobile device traffic increased 18.6 percent over last year to reach 57.1 percent of all online shopping traffic in 2014. Additionally, purchases made using mobile devices were up 20.4 percent year-to-year, reaching 34.8 percent for Christmas Day in 2014.
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Drilling down a bit into the numbers, IBM noted that more smartphones contributed to online shopping traffic than tablets—40.6 percent to 15.9 percent. However, more tablets were used to make purchases than smartphones. Tablet-based purchases ate up 18.4 percent of all online sales, whereas purchases made on smartphones only accounted for 16.3 percent of all online sales.
Though computer users only ate up 42.6 percent of all online traffic, more online purchases were made on computers than mobile devices—65.2 percent of all online sales, specifically. Additionally, those shopping on their computers tended to spend more than those shopping on their smartphones. The average order value for desktop users hit $107.72 this year, which is a bit higher than the $88.70 for mobile users. In general, shoppers spent a little bit more this year than last year. The average overall order value was up 6.2 percent to $100.33.
Apple iPhone and iPad users did a lot more shopping than their Android counterparts this year . They spent more—$97.28 per order versus Android users' $67.40—and they also drove more traffic and sales. Traffic from iOS devices accounted for 39.1 percent of all online traffic, soundly beating Android's 17.7 percent share. Additionally, sales made on iOS devices accounted for 27 percent of all online sales; Android users only hit 7.6 percent.
IBM's Digital Analytics Benchmark tracks real-time transactions across 800 or so different retail websites.