For the second year in a row, mobile holiday shopping on eBay peaked in the United States and worldwide on the second Sunday of December—the day the ecommerce giant calls “Mobile Sunday.”

In the U.S. mobile gross merchandise volume (GMV) grew 127 percent over the same Sunday last year, generating nearly $5 million in GMV. Worldwide, mobile GMV grew 165 percent, generating $13 million in GMV.

“EBay is redefining what it means to shop with our mobile apps, and consumers are embracing mobile shopping because it means they find and buy the largest selection of products and deals when and where it matters to them,” said Steve Yankovich, vice president of mobile at eBay, San Jose, CA.

“We lead busy lives and even more so during the holidays, and we design our mobile applications considering that you may in fact be mobile and only have a few moments,” he said.

Mr. Yankovich said that mobile has transformed the shopping experience this holiday season.

Consumers prefer using a phone to shop smarter for everything from clothing, shoes and accessories to toys and sporting goods.

Shopping for great deals anytime and from anywhere continues to gain momentum with consumers, per eBay.

Mr. Yankovich claims that eBay’s suite of mobile applications has surpassed 30 million downloads worldwide.

Mobile Sunday
In the U.S., eBay mobile GMV was up 38 percent on Mobile Sunday over Cyber Monday 2010.

Clothing and accessories topped the list of most-sold items among U.S. shoppers buying with their phones, with the top five U.S. states by sales volume California, Pennsylvania, Florida, Indiana and Ohio.

The findings in the three weeks leading up to the busiest mobile shopping day of the year on eBay clearly demonstrate that mobile phones are changing the way people shop this holiday season.

The top U.S. categories by mobile GMV sales are clothing/accessories, cars/trucks, jewelry/gems/watches, sporting goods and auto parts.

The top U.S. categories by number of mobile transactions are clothing/accessories, collectibles, mobile phones/accessories, toys and sports memorabilia.

On the busiest mobile shopping day, Sunday, Dec. 12, 2010, U.S. mobile shopping peaked between the hours of 1:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. EST, with more than 9,500 transactions per hour.

An interactive infographic application available at http://www.ebayinc.com/mobilecommerce visualizes eBay mobile shopping trends from Nov. 22 through Dec. 12 within the top 20 eBay product categories across eBay’s leading mobile commerce markets.

According to consulting firm Accenture, 73 percent of smartphone owners now prefer using their phone at retail for simple shopping tasks, rather than talking with a store employee.

EBay Mobile is gearing its tactics to be the forefront of this rapid shift in consumer shopping behavior.

By integrating bar code-scanning and local shopping results into its mobile applications, eBay is attempting to bridge the in-store and online shopping experiences to help holiday shoppers comparison-shop and make better informed buying decisions.

“Bar code-scanning, focused product apps like Fashion, great deals near you with our Milo integration in RedLaser and automatic notifications of new items found for a previous search are just a few examples of how our mobile offerings have seen terrific growth all year and this holiday season,” Mr. Yankovich said.

Final Take
Mobile commerce infographic