Mobile shopping set to break records this Christmas

YOU may get to beat the shop queues this Christmas as mobile purchases boom but the changing habits of shoppers are set to rain on retail's parade in a big way.

This Christmas, mobile devices will be the place to go for your shopping needs

THOSE lost souls you see floating around Westfield desperately looking for Christmas presents are set to become obsolete as a mobile Christmas may be upon us.

While savvy shoppers have been taking to perusing on their PCs to beat queues and disappointment in recent years that too is changing as the rise in the number of tablets and mobiles is radically changing shopping habits.

Consumers are increasingly jumping on their touchscreen devices to purchase goods from their beds or slouched in front of TVs, and UK shopping retailer John Lewis predicts that, come Christmas Day, traffic to its website from mobile devices will overtake that from desktop computers for the first time, the UK Telegraph reported. Last year, almost 50% of traffic to its site was from mobile but this year is expected to top that, which is why they are calling this year a 'mobile Christmas'.

"Mobile is set to be the shining star of Christmas 2013," Mark Lewis, online director of John Lewis said in a statement.

"Shopping is becoming much more of a social experience with people browsing, purchasing and sharing ideas with others using their mobile phones and tablets.

"We expect this to increase dramatically during the festive period as customers shop on the go and we anticipate that Christmas Day will be the tipping point for mobile."

The UK Telegraph reports this trend of mobile shopping has caused another boom in digital retail (following the internet's first impact) and British consumers could spend Pound10.8bn (A$18.3 billion) online in December, the first time that the Pound10bn (A$17bn) mark has been topped in a single month, according to IMRG and Capgemini. This would reflect a 15% increase in online spending for the year.

As the relationship of growing online consumer offerings continue and mobile products being launched in their droves, online spending is set to reach new benchmarks and leave plenty of happy shoppers in the process.