一位烦躁的上班族在坐巴士回家的途中用自己的智能手机在最后一刻给孩子购买节日礼物。一位办公室员工在中午外出用餐时用手机浏览时尚网站，购买最新款的UGG雪地靴。在线零售公司的高管们在兜售移动商务及其潜力时往往会描述上述情景——人们在移动中购物。但这与现实仍然存在巨大的差距。

    大多数移动购物都在平板电脑上完成，而不是智能手机。此外，所谓移动购物的说法并不准确。消费者确实会通过移动设备浏览商品。但有分析师表示，大多数购物行为都是在客厅沙发上完成的，而不是在公园的长椅上、地铁或孩子足球赛的场边。科技咨询公司弗雷斯特（Forrester）的分析师苏查丽塔•穆普鲁称：“实际上，智能手机很难用于完成交易，平板电脑就容易得多，这一点毫无疑问。”

    弗雷斯特对55家在线零售网站的调查显示，去年，美国在线零售额中3.2%来自平板电脑，而来自智能手机的交易不足一半，仅有1.5%。总体而言，造成这种差距的原因是：智能手机屏幕过小，浏览商品和输入信用卡信息对消费者来说是痛苦的体验。

    当然，与整个电子商务市场相比，移动购物还不值一提。但它目前正在快速增长，未来，移动购物在在线零售中所占份额必将进一步加大。互联网调研公司康姆斯科（comScore）的调查显示，在截至今年九月份的一个季度，移动购物占电子商务的10%。此外，IBM称，在个别情况下，如感恩节过后的“疯狂购物日”黑色星期五，通过移动设备购物产生的销售额占总销售额的16%。

    eBay等公司认为，移动购物对它的未来至关重要。eBay首席执行官约翰•唐纳荷预测，今年，使用移动设备的消费者在eBay的消费额将达到100亿美元，比2011翻了一番。

    A harried commuter riding home on the bus uses his smartphone to buy last-minute holiday toys for his kids. An office worker sitting outside during lunch browses fashion sites on her phone and buys the latest Ugg boots before returning to her desk. Online retailing executives describe scenes like these -- people shopping on the go -- when touting mobile commerce and its potential. The reality is far different, however.

    Mobile shopping is largely done on tablets, and not smartphones. Moreover, the term mobile shopping is somewhat of a misnomer. Yes, people use mobile devices to window shop. But much of the buying is done at home from the living room sofa, and not from a park bench, subway or the sidelines of a children's soccer game, according to analysts. "The smartphone is actually a terrible device to complete a transaction on," says Sucharita Mulpuru, an analyst for Forrester (FORR), the technology consulting company. "There's no question that the tablet is easier."

    Last year, tablets accounted for 3.2% of all U.S. online retail sales, more than double the 1.5% share for smartphones, according to a survey of 55 online retailers by Forrester. The reasons for the gap boil down to this: Smartphone screens are so tiny that browsing products online and entering credit card information is a pain.

    Of course, compared to overall e-commerce, mobile shopping is miniscule. But it is growing quickly and is expected to account for a far greater share of online retailing in the coming years. Mobile shopping represented 10% of e-commerce in the quarter ending in September, according to comScore (SCOR). On certain days, like Black Friday, the shopping-crazy day following Thanksgiving, mobile devices accounted for 16% of all sales, IBM (IBM) said.

    Companies like eBay (EBAY) consider mobile shopping to be critical to their futures. John Donahoe, eBay's chief executive, predicts that shoppers using mobile devices will spend $10 billion on his site this year, double the amount in 2011.