Over the last decade, every New Year seems to come with a fresh claim that 'This is going to be the year of mobile'. However, according to figures from IMRG over the Christmas period last year, shopping via mobile devices increased by 140% year-on-year. In fact, our own research showed that over the 'Cyber Weekend' alone, both mobile phone and tablet purchases quadrupled from 2012 to 2013, showing that consumers are already picking up their mobile devices during these key retail periods rather than heading to a desktop. Therefore, anyone claiming that M-commerce is ‘coming’ in 2014 may have already missed the boat.
More recently, Shop Direct commented that they expect all their purchases this year to involve a mobile device at some stage, whether that's for researching a product or making the final purchase. Whether it’s via smartphones or tablet devices, mobile technology has already changed the way consumers shop dramatically, so much so that retailers without a mobile string to their eCommerce bow will have to catch-up quickly or risk missing out on the potential revenues mobile can offer.
This growth in mobile usage has also gone hand in hand with shoppers having much higher expectations of what a retailer has to offer. A mobile app or website that is slow to load, with an interface that doesn't suit a phone or tablet device, can kill a sale instantly. These devices also have their own unique user experience requirements, whether it's simplifying the interface for the small screen of a smartphone or utilising the larger tablet screen with rich media content.
Despite this, research we conducted in October 2013 found that a quarter of the UK's top 50 most visited retail websites still do not have a mobile optimised site. Additionally, half of these top sites are hosting their mobile site under a different URL to their existing website, which could be negatively impacting their SEO rankings. In fact, only one of the sites tested at the end of last year was set up and ready to accept users from any device to a single site with responsive web design - where content on the site automatically adapts according to the device being used.
Responsive web design is one of the simplest, quickest and most cost-effective ways for a retailer to answer the mobile question. It offers retailers a single site that delivers a perfectly optimised user experience to the consumer, whether they are on their phone, tablet, netbook, or desktop and is the perfect foundation for new devices such as Google Glass and Samsung Gear.
One thing is clear, consumers have come to expect the same level of shopping experience across all retail touch points, whether that's in-store, online or on a mobile device. There is no silver bullet, but retailers need to act swiftly if they don't want to be left behind and miss out on the mobile future of eCommerce.
By Damon Mannion, COO at Venda.
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