Purchases Made Via Tablets Plunging

Tablets still play a large role in retail purchases, as they are the most popular device for sales associates to use to do product demonstrations and often to perform in-aisle checkout. But on the other end of the transaction-the end where shoppers use their own tablets to make e-commerce purchases-the tablet is surrendering many of the purchases it briefly stole from smartphones. That's according to research recently published from Bizrate Insights.

The iPad specifically has seen a sharp and continual drop in how many purchases it processes, Bizrate said, dropping from control of about 70 percent of such purchases in 2013's Q3 down to 36 percent in Q116. "The decrease in the percentage of online sales taking place on a tablet is the result of the increasing utility of smartphones (screen size, website optimization, and improved cell phone coverage), which are nearly always at hand," said Hayley Silver, a Bizrate VP.