Mobile Shopping Growth ‘Will Be Phenomenal’

by Mike Essex on 2nd December 2010

Online retailers have been told to prepare for dramatic growth in the field of mobile shopping.

Patricia Davidson, author of The Shopaholic's Top 1,000 Websites and founder of online advice portal thesiteguide.com, predicted the rise in the number of purchases made over smartphones will be "phenomenal" in the near future.

She said the increases in this area of ecommerce are likely to be driven by the arrival of more apps on iPhones and the like, which encourage consumers to make purchases over the web.

However, she added more established online portals will not be overtaken by the channel for the foreseeable future.

"It is not going to take over from buying on your PC, or buying on an iPad, it's the screen size that's the problem," said Ms Davidson.

Her comments follow recent research from Kelkoo, which forecast British households will do 22 per cent of their Christmas shopping through online channels this year, bringing in a total of £11.5 billion.