Mobile ‘phone purchasing has nearly doubled in numerous areas of Australian e-commerce in the past year and many marketers are risking lost sales if their technology platforms are not ready to cope with demand from mobile purchasers.

New research from mobile technology company Ansible shows people’s mobile purchasing in major categories such as music/movies, video content, clothing & apparel, entertainment and gaming has doubled since last year.

“Mobile purchasing has become almost a daily factor for many people and from what we have seen, many clients will be missing sales as people on their mobiles pass by e-commerce sites that are not mobile friendly and operating efficiently,” said Scott Player, CEO of Ansible Australia, formerly named Mnet.

Ansible’s new research (see the report here) also points to the Australian wearables market also heading for record growth in 2016 and 2017. The wearables sector will contribute even more momentum to consumers’ shift to mobile-first information sources and e-commerce, says the research.

“Smart watch ownership has doubled across Australia in the past year as part of consumers’ continuing rapid transition to mobile 24/7,” said Player. “Eighteen per cent of people now own a smartwatch, but we are also seeing many other interest points in wearables that tell us there is strong potential growth looming across this product sector.”

Ansible’s research says that awareness of wearables has reached 96 per cent of the population and that half of Aussies plan to buy a wearable device in the next six months.

Smart watches form the most dominant category due to consistent hype, new product introductions and marketing campaigns.  Sales in this sector are led by Apple with Samsung in second place.

Fitness is the second most popular wearables sector and while there are many highly capable branded devices available, Fitbit has become a generic name for products in the sector because of a proliferation of new model launches in the Fitbit range.

Gaming is in third place with 28 per cent of people having used a gaming app on their wearable.  The incidence of gaming is boosted by wearables that offer gamified fitness apps, while the general level of interest in wearable apps is also very high.

Another strong area of interest highlighted in the Ansible research is mobile tap-and- pay payments. ApplePay, even with very limited support so far from banks and retailers, is the most used mobile payment service. Among people who have made a tap payment, 45 per cent have used ApplePay.

“ApplePay is continuing to gain traction overseas, so we believe local consumers are ready for tap-and-pay via mobile technology to make its way to the Australian mainstream,” said Player.

However, online security remains a constant concern across all Australian demographics, particularly older people.