Right now about two-thirds of online retail occurs via smartphones and tablets and the use of mobile devices and mobile apps for shopping is continuing to grow. Clearly, you don’t have to be a marketing genius to understand the importance of mobile to retail. And if you haven’t called an iPhone application developer or Android application developer yet, what are you waiting for?

According to comScore Inc., 66% of time spent with online retail in September 2014 occurred on mobile devices (This number is up from 52% in March 2013). And with 174 million U.S. consumers owning smartphones and 93 million owning tablets (comScore) the market is beyond substantial.

Andrew Lipsman, vice president of marketing and insights at comScore, attributes this growth to three things. First of all, he explains that customs are becoming increasingly more comfortable with the act of shopping via their mobile device. Beyond that, for his second factor, he credits companies with doing a better job with their mobile shopping applications, creating experiences that make it easier to shop on their mobile devices.

His third factor is mobile apps. Fact of the matter is that consumers prefer mobile apps to the mobile web (shown in research by comScore and several others). Consumers are spending more of their Internet time on mobile apps. Mobile applications can make full use of a mobile device’s features and functions, therefore they provide better user experiences than users find on mobile web sites.

According to Kimber Johnson, Marketing Director, Pacific App Design “Savvy companies making sensible use of mobile applications and driving more consumers to mobile shopping. We anticipate seeing even greater emphasis placed on mobile apps in the near future as the success stories continue to be heard.”