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Online Holiday Shopping followed the Hot Topics of 2019: Mobile & Security

by Tara Bartley on January 23, 2020

Here’s what I learned this past holiday season: I’m not alone shopping on my mobile device on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. And while Hollywood actors may take the holidays off, threat actors certainly do not. Let’s have a look at some of the numbers. Akamai has a lot of data, but let’s look at some of the most interesting tidbits.

This past Christmas Day, 68% of all online shopping took place on mobile devices with 28% of shopping happening on desktops. This is compared to 2018 with percentages of 62% versus 31%. When we compare the numbers for Boxing Day, the increase in mobile shopping year-over-year (YoY) is similar. For 2019, 65% on mobile/27% desktop, an increase from 2018 of 58%/34% respectively.

The trend is pretty clear and not unexpected, but it’s always good to have the numbers to validate our assumptions. The key takeaway for retailers is to measure what kind of experience customers (or potential customers) had when shopping during the high-peak holidays. Optimizing mobile web sites and apps for images and videos is key to enhancing the experiences and ensuring that expectations are met. This creates brand loyalty, which is more important than ever in this incredibly competitive eCommerce world.

When it comes to security, credential stuffing attacks on Akamai’s network increased drastically YoY. For Christmas Day and Boxing Day 2019, the numbers were 75m and 83m. That is up from 42m and 17m in 2018, respectively. While increases in credential stuffing attacks don’t come as a huge surprise because of the massive lists of breached credentials being traded and sold on the black market, the scale of the increases is jaw-dropping. The message here is clear; security is an absolute necessity for online retailers who are collecting our most critical data.