The small screen continues to rule our daily lives. We've been glued to our phones for years now, and that translates into new ways of interacting and consuming. Among those new habits: digital purchases. Year after year, sales through mobile devices keep growing.
And in 2025 the trend will continue. In fact, the rise of mobile commerce is one of the main trends we at Boost have identified for this new year. An "obvious" trend, but one with its share of highs and lows. Because like any trend, the only way to turn it into an opportunity is knowing how to take advantage of it.
Check out our full 2025 Trends Report and discover how to turn your data into business decisions with real impact.
In this article we'll explain the current challenges of mobile commerce and how your business should approach 2025 to tackle them head-on. One thing is clear: your business needs to be present on mobile devices. But so do your data and web analytics. Here's how:
The star of the last decade will keep on shining: the smartphone is and will remain the preferred device for the vast majority of users to make purchases (and handle practically every other task). According to Statista estimates, 66% of online orders were placed via mobile phone and that figure will keep climbing.
Even though this growth continues, a second data point reveals that this trend still has enormous potential: while sales plateau at 66%, mobile visits to retail websites reach 80%. This means a large share of users are not completing their purchases on these devices.
Users' reluctance to complete purchases via mobile is nothing new. In fact, we all know people who browse the web on their phone (searching for a flight, say) but once they've decided what to buy, they complete the purchase on their laptop. Why?
Design and usability issues — Although more and more companies now consider mobile devices when designing their website, there are still areas to improve. Simply resizing content to fit a small screen isn't enough. Users want a design built for that device.
Distrust on mobile devices — Fraud, phishing, suspicious links… At first it was distrust of a new device like the smartphone, but now the threats are very real. And while this risk exists on other devices, mobile is always the most common target.
Poorly optimised navigation — A responsive design is critical on mobile. Without it, it's easy to fall into the typical problems of the mobile purchase journey: excessively long load times, errors or connectivity issues between different applications or features (e.g., payment gateways like PayPal).
Cognitive biases, design issues, excessively long wait times… The barriers to mobile conversion can be endless. And the challenge for 2025 will be exactly that: identifying which frictions are preventing your mobile purchase process from being good enough.
To do that (no surprise here!) you'll need to pay close attention to your analytics. Yes, your data doesn't lie. 2025 will be the year to invest in solving the mystery of your visits-to-sales gap. The year to dedicate time and effort to understanding the data that shapes your users' experience.
Understanding the differences between devices and the data from the mobile version of your website or service will be key to increasing that modest online sales percentage and seeing a real impact on your financial results. And for that, you need to find and gather the right data.
First of all, you need to define exactly what you want to know. With rare exceptions, the key question will be understanding how your users' mobile experience differs and where frictions arise that limit conversion.
To find the answer, you'll need to collect the right data. It's important to design a data collection strategy broken down by device (mobile phone, computer, mobile app…) that tracks the same metrics (specifically those that are useful for your business).
Interaction metrics, time on page, steps in the purchase process, abandonment rates… The indicators should always be the same but must be separated by device. Tools like Google Analytics 4 can help you achieve this.
With solid segmentation by device, you can move on to the second step: integrating that data within a single web analytics platform that lets you cross-reference and compare it.
Proper integration of that data is essential for drawing the right conclusions. So you should focus on building a clear dashboard that synchronises data from different devices clearly and effectively.
It may seem obvious, but it isn't. Despite collecting per-device data, many online businesses fail to integrate it properly and never manage to produce clear, useful comparisons.
Now that you have good segmentation and integration in place, it's time to get to what really matters: comparing your users' behaviour and your website's performance depending on the device they're using. This is the most effective way to understand what you can improve to boost conversion.
Friction points are hidden in many indicators. The most obvious are abandonment rates on each page of your website or errors that are visible at a glance. But others can go unnoticed, such as poor rendering or excessively slow loading.
Use every tool at your disposal to understand your users in their mobile experience. Key metrics, heat maps, recorded sessions… You know that mobile experience often comes down to intangible things you need to know how to find.
If you have a clear picture of the frictions in your customers' mobile experience, now it's time to roll up your sleeves and start designing a purchase process adapted to their needs. Sometimes the changes are a matter of interface. Other times, it's about the information that builds trust. And other times, simply about the steps they need to follow to convert.
Finding the right answer may take some time, so start slowly (step by step). Plan an A/B testing strategy aimed at addressing the various frictions and analyse which of them has the greatest impact. If you have clear metrics (segmented by device, remember!), finding the answer will be straightforward.
This will be another great year for the small screen. Of that there's no doubt. But the real opportunity lies in your data and how you put it to work to improve your website's mobile conversion.
The rise of mobile commerce is just one of the 5 trends we've analysed in our new report to kick off the year. 2025 will be defined by innovation and constant change, so it's essential to be prepared to face it. If you want to start by properly segmenting your web analytics by device, you're in the right place. At Boost we help you design analytics that collects, integrates and visualises the right data so you can make more strategic decisions. And the first step is reaching out to us.
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