The holiday season is the greatest time for retailers to get their sales numbers up, which affects the year-end figures. IBM is just one of the companies that performed what is called a Digital Analytics Benchmark for 2013 and tracks about 800 e-commerce sites in the US. They gathered information for four retailer categories: home good retailers, heath and beauty, department stores, and apparel. The results of findings showed that online retail sales grew 10.3% in comparison to 2012.

IBM found that last year was simply another record-breaking year during the holiday season also. Thanksgiving went up 19.7%, Black Friday went up to 19% and Cyber Monday went up 20.6%. The online sales data from IBM is not provided monthly. Shoppers have become more comfortable will making purchases online, which has taken some time to happen. With the level of growth occurring with mobile sales, it only makes sense that more online retailers will create more innovative ways to do business and deliver products to the customer’s front door.

Online sales have skyrocketed in the recent years, and the growth has been steady. The numbers for the holidays show online retail is being used by more and more customers via mobile devices as well. Mobile sales were reported by IBM to have increased by 46% compared to last year’s 4th quarter. They also accounted for 16.6% of digital sales as well. Large online retailers like eBay and Wal-Mart, have also offered same-day delivery for their products, which can be easily used from mobile devices as well.

What has been key to mobile sales growth has been the use of smartphones and tablets. IBM found that they accounted for 35% of online traffic during the holiday season. This is a huge increase, up 40% from 2012. Smartphones produced double the traffic of tablets, up 21.3%. However, shoppers spent more money on tablets than smartphones, which equated to $118.09 on tablets, versus $104.72 on smartphones. This makes sense being that tablets are much more user-friendly.

The mobile devices primarily used were Apple products. They generated more sales in the fourth quarter than Google’s smartphone and tablet android software. The iPhone and iPad accounted for 22.1% of total web traffic, 12.7% of total online sales and was used by shoppers that spent $115.42 per order. In contrast, Android shoppers accounted for 10.6% of total web traffic, 2.6% of total online sales, and shoppers sent $83.56 per order.

With the way online sales grew last holiday season, retailers are sure to be anticipating an even bigger numbers this year. The key is going to be who will be prepared for it, already setting up the right delivery system to fulfill the online orders. Some online retailers are opting to perform their own deliveries. However, many other retailers are in some fashion partnering with a Same-Day Courier like A-1 Express to make the deliveries for them. One plus about partnering with A-1 Express is the courier service can be a one-stop source for deliveries nationwide and can quickly implement a same-day delivery solution.

Reference: Internet Retailer, Amy Dusto, Online sales rise 10.3% year over year in Q4