Now that the ecommerce holiday shopping period is coming to a close, many are seeing the benefits of optimizing their sites for mobile devices.

After all, more than half of all local search engine inquiries in the U.S. are now made from mobile devices, meaning that most people are either researching products, or doing their ecommerce holiday shopping from mobile devices. This is backed by a study from Business Insider, which found that more than a quarter of ecommerce holiday shopping during Thanksgiving was done on mobile devices, while Black Friday and Cyber Monday also showed increases in mobile device usage for purchases.

Conversely, if a business doesn’t have mobile ecommerce capabilities, it’s losing out on tons of potential sales. In order to close this gap between competitors who are already putting mobile web design to good use, businesses should follow the latest responsive web design trends that have become increasingly popular. RWD is an approach at building sites so they can provide an optimal viewing experience across a wide range of devices. It means minimal scrolling, resizing and panning whether you’re on your laptop or your smartphone.

Mobile optimized websites were able to cash in on ecommerce holiday shopping expenditures this past season of an estimated $4.6 billion on Cyber Monday, Black Friday, and Thanksgiving. On Cyber Monday alone, the ecommerce holiday shopping done on tablets alone added up to $237 million in sales.

It should also be noted that, according to Business Insider, offline shopping figures were down.

For next year’s ecommerce holiday shopping period, mobile optimization will be an absolute necessity for businesses, as mobile device usage is only expected to grow. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments. Learn more about this topic here.