Online retail website visits and orders in the U.S. 2024, by device

In the third quarter of 2024, smartphones accounted for over three-quarters of retail site visits in the United States and generated roughly two-thirds of online shopping orders. Desktop computers generated just 23 percent of retail website traffic but represented 31 percent of all purchases in the country. 

Mobile commerce here to stay

Since 2019, mobile commerce in the United States reached a peak in spending in the last quarter of 2022. That quarter, U.S. shoppers spent a grand total of over 127 billion U.S. dollars on their mobile devices. The importance of mobile commerce has not gone unrecognized by businesses either. When asked about what digital commerce channels they were investing in, nearly 50 percent of B2C (business-to-consumer) organizations in the U.S. reported investing into mobile apps in 2022.

America’s favorite shopping apps

With mobile shopping as commonplace, there are few things that cannot be purchased with a few taps on a smartphone. From groceries to personal care to fashion, U.S. Americans download different shopping apps every day in order to make their m-commerce purchases. With a total of over 35 million downloads, e-commerce giant Amazon’s app was the most downloaded in the country in 2022. The fast-fashion SHEIN app followed with roughly 27 million downloads that year.