This past weekend was the much advertised and vaunted “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday” US Thanksgiving holiday sales events. An interesting article on TechCrunch (link here) cites data from Branding Brand, a mobile commerce startup that analyzes retail shopping data specifically on mobile devices and smartphones (a client list is below)
that shows a 221% increase year over year in smartphone only mobile commerce on Thanksgiving and a 128% increase on Black Friday during the same period. What is interesting apart from the numbers themselves (which obviously show a great increase in sales through smartphones) is how they are derived. This article specifies sales data from smartphones or mobile devices, rather than lumping it with all e-commerce as has been done in the past.
With the growth of smartphone usage for mobile purchasing analytics were sure to follow and I think there is a definite need to distinguish between true mobile purchasing and simply using a standard website through a mobile device. As stated by Branding Brand’s CEO, “most industry reports capture overall mobile usage, a true chasm of analytical performance data exists between how people use mobilized and non-mobilized websites.” This blends nicely with the idea that customized dashboards are a requirement for companies that want to be active in social media and mobile commerce. In the past a company may not have cared if a sale came through its website from a desktop user or mobile user, just that they made a sale. However now companies will want to know if the money they are investing in a mobile optimized site is paying off and if they are losing customers whom are frustrated with the “pinching and zooming” associated with navigating a desktop site on a mobile device.
Analytics aren’t going away any time soon and with increased smartphone use comes increased smartphone analytics, for every weekend of the year.