Mother’s Day sees UK online and mobile revenue bloom

As we reflect on the first Mother’s Day out of lockdown, online and mobile continue to be the channels of choice for Mother’s Day shopping, data from the eCommerce platform Visualsoft has revealed.

Visualsoft’s data suggests that over a third (40%) of retailer revenue was generated from mobile devices across the month of March, in the build up to Mothers Day. Half (50%) of all weekend revenue was achieved through mobile, which was an increase of over 15% in the same period in 2021, indicating that the trend to shop via mobile continues to rise.

UK consumers were less prepared this year, with average order values (AOV) peaking between 22nd March and 25th March, up +25% compared to the week leading up to Mothers Day last year, indicating some relatively ‘last minute’ purchases.

Sectors seeing the greatest traffic uplift for March in comparison to last year included:

- Jewellery (+160%)

- Sports and outdoors (+50%)

- Health, beauty and cosmetics (+36%)

In 2021, we saw the national lockdown driving unusually high online sales performance for retailers. Even so, sales continued to grow YoY with increases of 3% across key verticals, including sports and outdoors, jewellery, health and beauty and cosmetics, influenced by Mothers Day gifting.

Dean Benson, the founder of Visualsoft, commented: “As we reflect on the first Mother’s Day out of lockdown, online and mobile were still key channels for UK consumers for this special event as they shopped ‘on the go’. The data also shows that purchases were left to the last minute in comparison to last year when we saw consumers, urged to stay home, making preparations a lot earlier in the month to ensure gifts arrived on time through the post.

“Retailers with the ability to provide order processing and speedy delivery were the winners this year. As we move through 2022, these are the key platform capabilities that brands need to put in place ahead of other key dates in the retail calendar.”