Mobile Update: Black Friday

The first wave of information is in regarding mobile’s role in Black Friday/Cyber Monday revenue.  Below are some highlights.

The biggest news was that mobile revenue was over $1 billion by the end of Black Friday. That was a 33% increase from last year.  The most optimistic projections had revenue over $1 billion by the end of Cyber Monday.

PayPal reported that one-third of all payments on Black Friday were from smartphones.

Walmart reported that on Black Friday 70% of their online traffic was mobile. Target stated on Black Friday 60% of their online traffic was mobile.

On Thanksgiving, mobile revenue accounted for 40% of all sales and 57% of traffic. (MediaPost)

Amazon reported that mobile revenue on Thanksgiving topped last year’s Cyber Monday.

A very impressive week for mobile commerce.    Companies will continue to develop their mobile commerce platform.  Mobile’s advantage is the online buying cycle.  The consumer already uses mobile first to compare prices and check reviews.  Companies need to take advantage of those habits and help the consumers take the next step.  Consumers have always been ahead of companies in the demand for easy to use mobile commerce platforms. Companies need to catch up to smartphone users requests for the simple reason there is over $1 billion on the table.