We spend a stupidly large amount of money on online shopping here in Australia, but by and large we do it on PCs and laptops. In a few years, though, that’s set to change: people are going to buy a whopping 43 per cent more stuff via their smartphones this year than they did in 2014.
Online shopping image via Shutterstock
According to PayPal, apparently the rate of overall e-commerce (catchy, huh?) growth is outstripped three to one by the rate of growth of mobile e-commerce. It’s still a long way behind the $50 billion that we spend yearly online, though. Yep, billion.
Looking it as a trend over the past few years from 2013 projected through to 2016, though, worldwide the increase in smartphone and tablet shopping is 42 per cent. In Australia is 204 per cent. That’s a ridiculously large jump.
Here are the salient points from the recent PayPal study, conducted worldwide and drilled down for Australia:
- This year, Australians will spend about $8.8 billion from their mobile devices.
- A third of online shoppers bought something from their smartphone within the last 12 months.
- People use their phones to look up product details, and cheaper online prices, when they’re in retail stores.
- A third of Paypal transactions in Australia today are done on smartphones.
- Shoppers prefer using an app (64 per cent) to a browser (55 per cent).
Apparently the future of shopping with your smartphone isn’t actually online, though. It’s all about near-field communication and tapping your smartphone against a cashless card reader, using it just like a Tap’n’Pay credit card, which plenty of Aussie banks already support. [PayPal]