Smartphones account for more e-commerce orders and traffic worldwide, with shoppers using tablets and personal computers less often, according to the latest Demandware Shopping Index.

In the first quarter of 2015, personal computers accounted for 66% of e-commerce orders worldwide, down 10% year over year, says the e-commerce and m-commerce technology vendor. Tablets accounted for 16%, up 3% year over year, while mobile phones accounted for 18%, up 59% compared with the first quarter of 2014.

Three factors account for consumers more oftens shopping on smartphones, says Adam Forrest, senior director of Americas marketing at Demandware. The most important, he says, is the proliferation of mobile-ready e-commerce sites.

“With responsive web design now mainstream most sites utilize this design technique to display sites best fitted for the form factor and make it easier to browse and shop,” Forrest says. “The second is the increase in screen size of phones and the decrease in screen size for tablets.  The phone screen size plus the responsive design makes it much easier for people to see the product and type in the forms.  The third factor is just the high adoption of the phone for everyday use.  With millennials driving phone usage, there are less concerns with making transactions on the device.  And a bonus item is that the Safari browser now encrypts and stores credit cards on the mobile device making the tedious process of entering the credit card number obsolete.”

Here is how “order share” breaks down by country, according to Demandware:

• United States: 69% of orders from computers, down 8% year over year; 13% of orders from tables, down 5%; 18% of orders from phones, up 58%.

• United Kingdom: 52% from computers, down 16%; 24% from tablets, up 8%; and 24% from phones, up 52% year over year.

• Germany: 75% from computers, down 8%; 14% from tablets, up 12% year over year; and 12% from phones, up 76%.

• France: 77% from computers, down 7% year over year; 12% from tablets, up 6%; and 11% from phones, up 92%.

• Canada: 73% from computers, down 5%; 14% from tablets, down 2%; and 14% from phones, up 46% year over year.

Demandware bases its findings on an analysis of activity from more than 200 million shoppers on retail sites using Demandware software. It says more than 1,200 e-commerce sites around the world use Demandware technology; the index reports on same-store sales from e-commerce sites Demandware studied during the same period last year.

For traffic share, the technology vendor finds that, globally, computers accounted for 51% of analyzed traffic in the first quarter of 2015, down 14% year over year. That compares with 13% of traffic from tablets, down 7%, and 35% for phones, up 38%.

By country, that traffic share works out to:

• United States: 50% from computers, down 13% year over year; 11% from tablets, down 13%; and 38% from phones, up 33%.

• United Kingdom: 42% from computers, down 22% from the first quarter of 2014; 22% from tablets, down 3%; and 36% from phones, up 53%.

• Germany: 59% from computers, down 17% year over year; 14% from tablets, up 18%; and 27% from phones, up 58%.

• France: 61% from computers, down 12%; 11% from tablets, down 12% year over year; and 29% from phones, up 52%.

• Canada: 53% from computers, down 14% year over year; 15% from tablets, up 2%; and 32% from phones, up 35%.

Demandware provided no immediate comment about why more online shoppers are relying on phones, though multiple attendees at last week’s Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition in Chicago noted such a trend and said it is likely because of the increasingly large screens of smartphones.

In its report, Demandware advises retailers to focus not only on one device, though. That’s because both phones and tablets “are undeniably carrying digital commerce growth. Seamless mobile experiences are the expectation. Retailers that underestimate the importance of devices and provide only limited mobile functionality or create friction in shopper experiences will feel the pain and sales reduction of an unsatisfied shopper.”

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