British consumers prefer to buy on desktop

UK fashion consumers still rely on their desktops, instead of smartphones to buy clothes, according to new figures released by Nosto, a personalisation platform for online retailers, which analysed data from over 700 small to large merchants in Europe.

The data found that despite mobile ecommerce as a whole accounting for 51 percent of online purchases in the UK, the average order value of clothing from UK fashion consumers was 116 pounds on desktop, yet on mobile was just 89 pounds, and was even less than the 107 pounds spent on tablets by British consumers.

Despite this, UK is in the top three for mobile purchases of clothes in Europe, with the Nordics and France leading the way, with the average order value in the Nordics equaling 101 pounds and in France 96 pounds.

Overall, fashion retailers in Europe saw a 16 percent increase in online revenue from last year to 2016, while UK online fashion merchants had the biggest increase in web traffic, 28 percent jump across all devices compared to other countries.

Nosto founder and chief product officer, Juha Valvanne, said: “It’s clear that consumers in Europe love fashion, spending over 314 billion pounds on clothing items, both online and offline.

“British consumers are becoming increasingly comfortable at looking for clothes through their smartphone, the next challenge to be tackled will be in converting these interested customers, into paying ones and increasing their average order value.”

Matti Rönkkö, chief executive of Nosto added: “UK online fashion retailers can make some simple changes to their mobile sites to really build further trust with their customers. With Google's new mobile-friendly rules implemented last year, a retailer's website must now be fully optimised for smartphone users.

“Fashion fans typically have less patience than other shoppers: mobile bounce rate is the highest of any device and time on site is also the lowest, so retailers really need to make it easy for them to find the items they are looking for - speak to their customers as individuals and delivering them inspiring, engaging shopping experiences."