Desktop-based retail e-commerce spending grew by 13% year-over-year in Q3 to reach $47.5 billion, estimates comScore in its latest quarterly e-commerce figures. That’s one of the slower growth rates of the recent past, but still represents the 16th consecutive quarter of growth and the 12th consecutive quarter of double-digit increases. While desktop-based spending continues to increase on a year-over-year basis, mobile spending is thriving.
During this past quarter, retailers rang up $5.8 billion in mobile commerce. That’s almost 25% higher than Q2’s figure of $4.7 billion (comScore only began releasing mobile commerce figures in Q2, preventing year-over-year comparisons for now).
That near-25% quarter-over-quarter growth is even more impressive when considering that traditionally, e-commerce spending (at least from desktops) is softer during the third than the second quarter – as the above chart illustrates. (For example, the desktop-based Q3 spending tally of $47.5 billion was down from $49.8 billion in Q2.)
In all, mobile accounted for almost 11% of total e-commerce sales during Q3, up from 8.6% in Q2.
Other Findings:
- Purchases from smartphones comprised 62% of mobile commerce spending, compared to 38% from tablets.
- E-commerce accounted for 9.4% of consumers’ discretionary spending during Q3, down slightly from 9.6% in Q2 and 10.6% in Q1, but still the third-highest figure on record.
- The following 5 product categories qualified as “top-performers,” each with at least 14% year-over-year growth: digital content and subscriptions; apparel and accessories; consumer packaged goods; consumer electronics; and jewelry and watches.
