Today’s London Underground strike, which has brought the tube network to a standstill, may have another unintended consequence. It could be a blow for ecommerce.
Commuters spend a staggering £9.3bn as they travel to and from work, roughly 20% of the national total. The average commuter spend £36 a week with Londoners spending more each week: £44. According to a new survey from Zapp and the CEBR.
Key areas of shopping include clothing, entertainment items, digital downloads and groceries.
Zapp CEO Peter Keenan says: “From doing the weekly shop to buying tickets for a gig, commuters are becoming increasingly comfortable with shopping on their mobile devices wherever they are. But fishing out your credit or debit card and then tapping in a long sequence of numbers does not represent the ideal checkout experience on a packed train. If commuter commerce is to continue to flourish we need faster, safer mobile payment methods.”
Rob Harbron of the CEBR added: “People in Britain spend more online per head than any other nation, and it seems our love affair with online shopping now also extends to the morning rush hour. The data shows that commuter commerce is booming in the UK as savvy commuters use their time efficiently to make the purchases they just don’t have time for normally. We estimate that making the mobile checkout experience faster and safer could boost spending by £30m each week.”
