Asda is enjoying a massive boost in m-commerce as the retailer’s legion of shopping mums embrace new technology.

Over the Christmas period, Asda said 25% of its online orders were made on either mobiles or tablets. This has since climbed to 30% and the retailer expects the figure to reach 50% by the end of the year.

Asda’s head of social media, Dominic Burch, told The Grocer its online shopping app had proved a hit with mums, 50% of whom own a smartphone.

“The app allows shoppers to build their basket during the week, to use the little pockets of time they get, adding items to their basket late at night or waiting for their kids to come out of school,” he said.

Asda launched the app 18 months ago and since then it has had more than two million downloads, although the retailer has not revealed how many active users there are.

Since the launch, Asda has unveiled a series of innovations to promote mobile technology, including Wi-Fi in all but 22 of its 566 stores.

It recently updated the app, enabiling shoppers to speed up their Asda Price Guarantee check by scanning a barcode on a shopping receipt. The retailer’s Click & Collect service is also available via mobile devices.

“Shoppers want to be able to purchase across multiple channels at the touch of the button or the swipe of the screen,” Burch said. “If you put barriers in the way or make it inconvenient they will go elsewhere.”

Burch raised eyebrows on Monday at the Social Media World Forum in London, when he declared during a speech that “websites are dead, unless mobile ready”.

Although Asda was a relative newcomer to apps, it had been able to “leapfrog ahead by leveraging Walmart’s office in Silicon Valley” to create a simplified “glitch-free app without bells and whistles”, claimed Burch.

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