76 Percent of Mobile Shoppers Are Bypassing Your Brick-and-Mortar Store

February 8, 2026

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76 Percent of Mobile Shoppers Are Bypassing Your Brick-and-Mortar Store

76 percent of mobile shoppers now bypass brick-and-mortar stores entirely, choosing instead to research, compare, and purchase products through their smartphones.

This behavioral change arrives as e-commerce claims an 18.5 percent share of the retail market, totaling $1.14 trillion in annual sales. Mobile commerce alone generated $564 billion in 2024, and projections indicate this figure will surpass $850 billion by 2027, accounting for 38 percent of all digital spending.

The trajectory through 2030 suggests mobile will increasingly define how consumers interact with retailers.

The Scale of Digital Migration

The numbers reveal the depth of this market transformation. Smartphones accounted for nearly 80 percent of retail website visits worldwide in 2024, generating the majority of online orders.

What makes this particularly significant for physical retailers is that 80 percent of consumers now use mobile devices while standing inside stores, frequently conducting price comparisons or additional research before deciding whether to complete a purchase. This behavior directly contributes to declining foot traffic across retail sectors.

The economic implications extend beyond simple channel preference. Mobile apps demonstrate conversion rates three times higher than traditional websites, with cart abandonment rates of just 20 percent compared to 97 percent for mobile web browsing.

Users view 4.2 times more products per session when shopping through apps, creating substantially more revenue opportunities per interaction.

How Physical Retailers Are Responding

Traditional retailers face mounting pressure from this consumer exodus to mobile platforms. The direct consequences include diminished in-store traffic, compressed sales volumes, and competitive disadvantages against digitally native brands. These challenges affect businesses of all sizes, from regional chains to independent boutiques.

A regional specialty retailer in Portland noticed a 30 percent decline in weekday foot traffic over 18 months while its website analytics showed surging mobile visits during traditional shopping hours. The pattern repeated across its five locations, with customers clearly choosing digital browsing over physical visits.

In response to this shift:

Seventy-five percent of retailers have increased their online investments.
Sixty percent have streamlined their checkout processes to match mobile shopping expectations.
Many have adopted buy-online-pickup-in-store (BOPIS) systems, recovering more than 25 percent of sales previously lost to pure-play e-commerce competitors.
PayPal integration at UK retail locations now enables in-store mobile payments, allowing price-conscious shoppers to complete purchases without abandoning their research tools.

The Emerging Phygital Model

The most successful adaptations blend digital convenience with physical presence through what industry analysts term “phygital” integration.

Gamified loyalty programs embedded in mobile apps generate four times higher daily active users and 60 percent better retention rates after twelve months compared to traditional programs. These features connect mobile engagement directly to in-store visits through location-based rewards and augmented reality tools.

Globally, mobile commerce reached $2.60 trillion in valuation during 2025, with projections climbing to $5.61 trillion by 2035. Perhaps most telling for brick-and-mortar operations: 45 percent of app revenue now originates from in-store tools like QR code scanning and inventory checking.

Mobile technology has evolved from a competitive threat into the primary infrastructure supporting both digital and physical retail channels.

The transformation continues accelerating as younger demographics, who treat smartphones as their default shopping interface, comprise larger portions of consumer spending. Physical retailers navigating this landscape find themselves managing hybrid operations where mobile presence determines whether customers ever walk through their doors.