Study: E-commerce keeps growing

The retail revolution may not be televised, but it will be digitized.



The new Q3 E-commerce Pulse from predictive analytics platform provider Custora shows that e-commerce revenue grew a healthy 11.8% year-over-year in third quarter 2015. E-commerce transactions rose an almost identical 11.6%.



Mobile continued to grow in significance as a channel for e-commerce in the quarter. Phones and tablets made up a combined 28.7% of e-commerce transactions, up from 23.1% of orders during the same time the prior year.



Apple’s iOS continues to be the platform of choice for mobile shoppers, taking 76.9% of the order share. However, Android’s stake climbed to 22.7%, up 16% from 19.5%.



Organic search was once again the leading driver of e-commerce purchases bringing in 22.5% of orders. Paid search ads and affiliate marketing both saw significant increases for each channel. Paid search moved up to 19.3% from 16.4% and affiliate marketing jumping to 16.7% from 12.1%.



Social media (including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest) continued to have a minor impact as an e-commerce purchase driver, only accounting for 1.5% of total volume.



However, a recent rash of new direct social selling tools such as the Twitter Buy Now button, expanded Pinterest Buyable Pins and YouTube shoppable ads may enhance social media’s influence on e-commerce purchases in coming quarters.