---
title: "The Tablet-First Retail Startup"
description: "Discover why tablet users drive 3.5x more retail value than mobile, with conversion rates 300% higher. Key data for startups targeting the growing tablet commerce market."
categories: ["trends"]
keywords: ["tablet-first retail","tablet commerce","mobile application","ecommerce trends","conversion rates","retail startups","IBM Black Friday report","Tomasz Tunguz","Theory Ventures","tablet penetration"]
ai_summary: "Tablet users drive 3.5x more retail value than mobile, with 300% higher conversion rates, highlighting the importance of tablet commerce."
date: 2013-12-02
lastmod: 2026-07-31
canonical_url: https://www.tomtunguz.com/spending-a-week-on-a-tablet/
author: "Tomasz Tunguz"
---

![image](https://res.cloudinary.com/dzawgnnlr/image/upload/q_auto/f_auto/w_auto/pt.png)

For retailers of any size from startup to Fortune 50, the tablet application has become more important than the mobile application. IBM's annual [Black Friday ecommerce report](http://www-01.ibm.com/software/marketing-solutions/benchmark-reports/black-friday-report-2013.pdf), which tracks 800 internet retailers proves the point.

Tablet users buy at a conversion rate which is 300% greater than mobile phones and despite generating only 60% of smart phone traffic, drive 65% more transactions at 14% larger basket sizes. Ultimately, the average tablet user is worth 3.5x the average mobile phone user. This is true even though the download ranks of the top 4 retail applications in the iTunes store are nearly identical.

<table>
<tr>
<th>App</th>
<th>iPhone</th>
<th>iPad</th>
<th>Difference</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Amazon</td>
<td>17</td>
<td>22</td>
<td>5</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>eBay</td>
<td>40</td>
<td>30</td>
<td>-10</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>GroupOn</td>
<td>44</td>
<td>54</td>
<td>10</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Target</td>
<td>72</td>
<td>100</td>
<td>28</td>
</tr>
</table>

The impact of tablets will only increase. Tablet penetration in the US at 35% is roughly [half that of smart phone penetration](http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Smartphone-Tablet-Uptake-Still-Climbing-US/1010297). But all the leading indicators show explosive growth in that figure. [67% of teens own both a phone and a tablet](http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Penetration-of-Smartphones-Tablets-Grows-Among-US-Teens/1010411). Walmart sold [1.4M tablets on Thanksgiving Day alone](http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/29/amid-some-fistfights-walmart-sells-1-4m-tablets-on-thanksgiving-ipad-mini-a-top-seller/), increasing household tablet penetration by 1.4% in just one day.

As [Flurry's data proves](http://blog.flurry.com/bid/102208/The-Mobile-Content-Explosion), there is an explosion in the number of new mobile applications but more importantly 300%+ annual growth in the number of apps commanding audiences of 20M or more MAU. I don't think any of these have been tablet first, but very soon and particularly in retail, I think we will see tablet-first/primarily tablet apps reach tremendous scale. The unit economics are just that compelling.