Mobile’s influence on digital commerce soars, study finds

Dive Brief: Digital spending topped $1 trillion in 2022, a 21% year-over-year (YoY) increase, according to Comscore’s State of Digital Commerce 2023 report. The total marks the highest year of digital commerce on record. The sector’s growth was largely fueled by mobile, which accounted for nearly 40% of retail consumer spending. During the fourth quarter, spending on mobile devices outpaced desktop spending, growing 26% and 14% year-over-year, respectively. Social commerce is also demonstrating a growing influence within the retail ecosystem. Retail sponsored content has seen increased consumer engagement on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Overview of the dive:

Less than a decade after its introduction as Comscore’s digital commerce trend tracker, mobile finds itself driving almost half of all digital transactions, indicating that convenience is a major driver of behavior. consumer purchase.

Further proof of its influence, mobile’s share of digital spending has also increased among the fastest growing digital commerce categories. For example, event ticket sales were up 75% year-over-year, with mobile accounting for 88% of the category’s digital spend in the fourth quarter. Mobile also accounted for around 38% of the total retail category in the fourth quarter.

The data also demonstrates the influence of the pandemic on digital commerce. In 2020, spending was just over $705 billion. By 2021, that number had grown to $904 billion, and by 2022, it crossed the $1 trillion mark.

“This level of growth previously took four years to achieve,” Ian Essling, senior director of surveys at Comscore, said in a statement.

Seamless and convenient online shopping also appears to be driving social commerce gains. According to the Comscore report, engagement with retailer and CPG brand sponsored content increased 153% on Facebook and 175% on Instagram to 27.2 million and 149 million actions, respectively, between the third and fourth quarters of 2022. Additionally, TikTok has seen phenomenal growth, with views of retail and CPG content reaching 12.1 billion views in 2022, up 407% from 2.4 billion views of 2020.

The question remains, however, whether the platforms can turn this interest into something actionable. While Accenture has projected social commerce to reach $1.2 trillion by 2025, most platforms and their strategies are at the touch-and-go stage. Instagram recently announced that it will remove the Shop tab from its built-in navigation bar this month, adding shortcuts instead to make it easier to create and consume content. Similarly, Instagram’s Meta sibling, Facebook, ended its live shopping feature last September. On the other hand, TikTok reportedly plans to build product distribution centers in the United States to further develop its social commerce capabilities.