Almost all UK consumers shop using their mobile

• 12th Wednesday 2011
• Ant Hodges
• m-commerce,Mobile Technology,Website Design

Yes. “91% of UK consumers have used their mobile for shopping”… apparently. Please take this stat with a pinch of salt.

Today on Twitter I have been monitoring the hashtag #themobileconf as I was not able to attend in person myself. I think that mobile is the way that the internet is going and people need to ensure that they are catering for their mobile users.

A few of the tweets this morning came out came out quoting that 91% of UK consumers have used their mobile for shopping.

Not being present at the event this tweet sent me straight to the net to substantiate this claim – and If I am honest, into a small panic!

If 91% of consumers admit to using their mobile for shopping, this is a huge game changer, something that ecommerce sites are sooooooo far behind on and something I need to be talking to my clients about TODAY!

In working with online retailers, I have not seen mobile browsers as something to be focussing on with this much importance. According to the stats from my clients sites (an example below), most sales are coming from traditional browsers and not mobiles. But was 91% banded as this stat? Are my clients just not attracting the right audience?

It seems, in reading the source of the stat here (provided by @themobileconf), that the stat itself is referring to UK consumers using their mobile “to either research or purchase” – not m-commerce in the context of making purchases on their mobiles alone.

The research seems to have been conducted by the Global Consumer Survey from MEF, the global community for mobile content and commerce, and it was conducted in 9 countries across 5 continents, with a total of 8,530 respondents.

What was the number of UK respondents? Where were they selected from?

If this small representation of the UK population (of which we are all consumers are we not?) were mobile savvy consumers, then I can believe this stat to be inflated as mobile savvy people will use their mobiles. If the people surveyed were a large cross section of the country then I believe that this stat will be much lower. I also think that only surveying 8,530 people worldwide and then using the UK proportion of this to band a stat for all UK consumers is wrong. This is just scaremongering is it not?

How do you see if you need to take action now?

Take a look at your site analytics. Then look at the browser type. In Google analytics on the left hand menu under Visitors > Technology > Browser & OS you get a report as per the image below.

If you change the “Secondary Dimension” to Operating System, then you will see the operating systems being used by your website visitors. If 91% is from mobile devices then you need to do something about ensuring your site is ready for m-commerce NOW! Stop everything else and sort it out. This is your top priority.

If it’s not the reality for your site, and I am confident that most will find that it is not, focus on the development and marketing work you have going on now, then plan to address this when the priorities you have set are sorted.

Mobile users need to be thought about and you cannot afford to write them off – but don’t let this kind of a stat lead you down a path of thinking it is you top priority.

Stats help in some cases. Mis-quoted and stats used out of context don’t. A huge thanks to @themobileconf for providing the source.