What browser are you using?

The answer likely changes throughout the day, according to a new study from Monetate that underscores a new challenge for retailers. As more sales shift online and to mobile devices, retailers need to ask themselves what browsers their customers are using.

What complicates the issue is that the browser wars are still raging, and who will win is far from clear.

In May, web traffic analysis tool StatCounter revealed that Google’s Chrome surpassed Microsoft’s Internet Explorer as the most popular web browser worldwide. But Monetate’s study, which focuses on ecommerce sites, suggests the answer to the question changes throughout the day.

During the day, when most people are at work, Internet Explorer still grabs a good share of the browsing activity at ecommerce sites, but the story is much different in the evening when the combined market share of Apple’s Mobile Safari and its desktop version tops both Chrome and Internet Explorer.

During the second quarter, Monetate said the ecommerce sites it was monitoring received about one-fourth of their traffic from Safari, an increase of 9.04 percent from the same period a year ago and second only to Internet Explorer.

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