UK Ecommerce Traffic is Increasingly Going Mobile

Posted on the 17th April 2016

According to a recent study conducted by SimilarWeb, 65% of the ecommerce traffic in the UK came from mobile devices in January; the greatest percentage of mobile traffic for any of the countries in the study, beating even the US and India. However, while two thirds of ecommerce traffic is coming from mobile devices, this doesn’t necessarily mean that mobile is the most important platform.


Desktops Get More Views and Longer Visits

Desktop devices drive more page views per visit, and the visitors stay longer too. The average number of page views for UK mobile users is just 7.6, while desktop is almost double that, at 13.6. The average desktop visitor will spend seven and a half minutes on an ecommerce website, while mobile users will spend just five minutes and 14 seconds.

So, while it’s clearly important to pay attention to mobile users, and to make sure that your site is mobile friendly, the visitors that are going to give the most attention to your products or services are those who are sat in front of a desktop or laptop.

The study doesn’t go into detail about remarketing, or multi-channel marketing, so it’s unclear as to how many mobile users go back to the site on their desktop, but it’s likely that this happens a great deal. More and more people are using their phones and tablet PCs to conduct product research, subsequently making the purchase on their work or home computer – which has a better keyboard and a bigger screen.

Mobile Matters

The best way in which to reach the largest possible audience is with a responsive (or adaptive) design that looks good on all devices. Magento offers some great themes that are mobile-friendly, and which can be extended with apps to offer an even more flexible shopping experience.

The easier you make it for shoppers to engage with your website using whatever platform best suits them, the more likely your users are to return to your site until they ultimately convert.

SimilarWeb’s study shows that we are spending more and more time on mobile devices in the English speaking world, but there’s still a place for a big screen, a mouse and a keyboard. And this is unlikely to change any time soon, so you will still need to think about all of your users and channels when you design your online shopping experience.