Australian consumers actively use their smartphones and tablets to shop for devices but few are buying with a preference for closing the sale on desktop still evident.

The gap could be explained by a the ‘showrooming’ phenomenon, according to a dgm study which found only 18% of all health and beauty sales come off a tablet despite the fact the vertical is one of the strongest in mobile traffic.

Travel is the only category where mobiles have a higher conversion rate than desktop even thought 90% of clicks are driven from desktops.

Technology is largely driven by the desktop which represents 85% of clicks and 94% of sales.

Fashion, retail, books and health and beauty are the strongest verticals in mobile clicks.

Twelve percent of clicks come from mobile for the fashion industry and mobile represents 9% of traffic for books.

Books have the highest conversion rates across mobile and tablet due to the lower average basket value.

The dgm Mobile report reveals Australia has a 65% penetration for mobile and more than 20% for tablets. However only 60% of businesses have a mobile optimised site.

John Matthews, general manager dgm, said Australia may have a higher mobile device penetration than the UK but our sales percentages are lower.

“This is being driven by the fact that a higher proportion of advertisers in the UK have mobile optimised websites and shows there is a real opportunity in Australia to close the gap by offering a better shopping experience to the consumer.”