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Topic: iPad

iPads account for 95 percent of commerce site tablet traffic

Summary: Tablets are turning into favorite devices for shopping online, leaving the smartphone with its tiny screen in the dust. Well, the numbers show it's actually iPads doing all the online shopping.

James Kendrick

By for Mobile News |

JK iPad army
GigaOM recently reported that tablets are now outpacing smartphones in accessing online shopping sites. The figures quoted were from marketing technology company Monetate, which tracked more than "100 million online shopping experiences". While significant for online retailers to recognize that online shopping sites should start targeting tablets, one little detail makes that task pretty darn easy.

John Gruber of the Daring Fireball points out, this little sentence in the GigaOM article is the most significant:

Almost all of the traffic (95 percent) was from the iPad, said Monetate.

The traffic discussed here is the percentage of online shopping traffic attributed to the tablet which outpaced that of the smartphone for the first time in the first quarter of 2012. Based on the quote above, it is actually the iPad that is outpacing the smartphone for online shopping.

Online retailers should be making their web sites iPad-friendly according to these numbers. Other tablets are not really a factor for online shopping based on the 100 million-plus online shopping experiences Monetate tracked. Android tablets may be growing in popularity, but apparently owners of those aren't shopping online.

Topics: iPad, Android, Apple, Mobility, Smartphones

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16 comments
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  • Honestly

    It didn't matter what Tablet I had, buying stuff online was always just easier with a PC and, most of the people I know set their Android User Agent to iPad so even their tablets will report they are requesting the iPad version of the page.

    For the moat part, I don't really think this means a whole lot.
    slickjim
    Reply 2 Votes

    • Come on now - don't get defensive. Grin

      To be fair, I have never "ordered" any item from my iPad. I have, however, surfed quite a few commercial web cites looking for various items from my iPad. And then, having found the information I sought, I might later purchase that item from my home PC.

      Anyway, that is all this blog is reporting on. Web traffic to commercial cites from iPad tablets account for 95 percent of all tablet browsing. It doesn't state consumers purchase items from their iPads. (Although I suspect quite a few examples of that exist.)
      kenosha77a
      Reply 3 Votes

      • No worries here

        My wife has an ipad, I have the Sony Tablet S... Ultimately, like I said, these web polls are a sham.
        slickjim
        Reply 1 Vote

    • How depressing is the competition

      [i]most of the people I know set their Android User Agent to iPad[/i]

      You spent hundreds of dollars buying a device that wasn't an iPad, but yet you and 'most' of the people you know still rely on the iPad's web user agent when using the web?

      I know quite a few family members who use their iPad primarily for browsing, social apps and shopping (Amazon couldn't be easier).
      dave95.
      Reply 3 Votes

      • really?

        No, we set it that way because those sites tend to be optimized for larger screened mobile devices. The result is as expected, a pretty quick site that loads correctly.
        slickjim
        Reply 1 Vote

        • You set it because

          No one knows other tablets exist to optimize their site for you, or because whoever made your tablet didn't care to change it's id string from "Mozilla/whatever" and the site thinks you have desktop sized 1280x800 display? Or, your browser just didn't send all required headers to inform the web site what it can display?

          I am most amazed that you can fiddle with the browser's identity and why would you bother, on your great non iPad tablet, that is. Or.. is it just that you play with your tablet as opposed to use it as an tool? A Tamagotchi replacement perhaps? :)
          danbi
          Reply Vote

  • Well duh...

    Of course, in the Android freetards alternative universe no-one wants to pay for anything, they couldn't give a monkey's cuss for rewarding content producers for their honest endeavour.
    Just like rip-off Android, Google 'owns' you and then sells 'you' many times over and 'you' get nothing for the privilege of being ripped off. Deservedly so.
    frogspaw
    Reply 3 Votes

    • I am android user

      I have top of the range Android smartphone and tablet and I do significant shopping online.
      But I always use PC to do online shopping as oppose to smartphone or tablet.

      Trying to enter creditcard information and then passing through subsequent 3D secure mechanism is bit of pain on these small devices.
      p.vinnie@...
      Reply 1 Vote

      • Time to try an iOS device?

        Even an iPod Touch, if the iPhone or the iPad is "too much" for you.
        You might be in for a surprise.

        hint: they all work the same.
        danbi
        Reply Vote

    • You don't get out much do you?

      Android users do spend money and in some countries App revenue has surpased iOS already. The USA is expected to be one of those markets this year.
      slickjim
      Reply Vote

      • Dreaming

        Peter, I don't know where you get your figures but this one is not even remotely close. The google play store generates 23% of the revenue of the Apple App Store and this is in the US. The metrics in other countries is just as bad. So yes Android owners don't like paying for apps or content.
        murving
        Reply 2 Votes

  • 95% of 6.52%

    The 88.12% of the entire ecommerce traffic still comes from PCs, according to the graph in the article. PCs are better at converting visits to purchases.
    Earthling2
    Reply 2 Votes

    • PC and Tables have the same conversion rate

      Read the article. It states that conversion rates for Tablets (iPad) vs. PC are about the same. Conversion rates for smart phones are much lower.
      nerd6
      Reply 2 Votes

  • Tablet hype

    "Tablets are turning into favorite devices for shopping online,"

    No, they are not. Why not show us some metrics to support this strong assertion? You cannot, because it is an outrageous falsehood.

    The only truth here is that in this small dataset, taking TABLET traffic alone iPads account for 95 percent of that.
    Tim Acheson
    Reply Vote

    • Stop the waves, I don't want them to happen!

      Perhaps you have heard of King Canute. To remind his courtiers that there were limits to what even kings could do, he took them to the shoreline and commanded the waves to recede. And the waves of course ignored him.

      Tablet traffic increased 384% in the last year. You could learn something from King Canute: the waves are gonna keep coming.
      Robert Hahn
      Reply 1 Vote

  • I am not surprised

    People in my family tried to use droid. They gave it a fair shot playing angry birds. The 7 year old never tried again, the 3 year old never touched it again, my wife said it is a joke. I got me an iPad. I owned it for about 10 minutes. Ever since the kids are lined up to snatch it, my wife is using it for electricity bills, gas bills, kids schedules, banking, shopping and of course games. I mean, it was expected. I just did not expect kids to fight over iPad, while the droid tablet be sitting in plain sight ignored.
    dcdavy
    Reply Vote
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