The recently published New York Times article titled “Retailers Retool Sites to Ease Mobile Shopping” covers about everything we’ve been saying about mobile for over a year now. To summarize for the sake of simplicity: Because the world is going mobile (with web-enabled mobile smart phones at that), mobile commerce is here and only projected to grow. Though merchants have been slow to respond to the mobile shopping up-tick, it’s apparent that those merchants who want to survive will take action.
…retailers report that only about 2 percent of their sales are coming from mobile devices, a number well below the expectations of many e-commerce analysts.
At the low end, our mobile website developers are seeing mobile shoppers account for 2-4% percent of total traffic and at the high end, 10%. But, as we’ve mentioned before, mobile shoppers are temperamental.
To understand the root of their excitable nature, let’s step into their heads for a minute: Mobile shoppers aren’t in the comfort of their climate controlled homes leisurely shopping for an item they’ve been thinking about forever. They are most likely in the middle of several different things– maybe in the middle of department store aisle shopping and doing some quick product comparisons from their smart phones– and don’t have time to waste if a site isn’t optimized for mobile.
Optimizing for Mobile Shoppers
What does it mean to be optimized for mobile? Ecommerce websites were originally made for those shopping from 15-17 inch screens. Now, with mobile smart phone users going to those same sites on their 3 inch screens, what do you think they’re seeing? That’s right, not much at all!
Everything appears so tiny that the super busy mobile shopper has to pinch open to zoom in–and even then they may zoom in on the wrong area and have to toggle around for a while just to get their bearings. (Ambiguous navigation is the fastest route to high bounce and cart abandonment rates!) A few mobile shoppers might push through, IF they’re really motivated, but then when they get to the purchase pay (if they make it that far), and it asks for billing information, that’s the last straw.
Who’s going to sit their and fumble through trying to get all that info. in, especially when they’re on the go?
The Reluctant Retailer
Why are retailers so reluctant to give on-the-go mobile shoppers a website from which they can easily navigate and purchase? For one, those traditional ecommerce sites weren’t cheap. Some retailers may have already invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into their traditional sites, and have these questions and concerns such as:
- What if mobile is just a short-lived trend?
- What if my customers don’t like the mobile site?
- What if my customers don’t sense our brand presence on a stripped down mobile site?
- Won’t this be like managing yet another web store for us?
- We have so many products, how can we possibly know which ones to feature on a 3 inch screen?
Though we love validating feelings, mcommerce is at the forefront of a massive paradigm shift. The difference between a short-lived trend and an irreversible system upgrade can be determined by the investment value placed into the infrastructure in relation to the proportional use-value consumers perceive.
We all know that everyone is upgrading to web-enabled smart phones, which is a huge manufacturer/retailer/consumer investment. We also know that these mobile smart phones facilitate the modern consumers’ lifestyle in ways a stationary PC never can.
Once merchants sense the aforementioned statements to be true, and realize that by NOT upgrading their traditional websites to something mobile-friendly is costing (up to 5-10% today, and perhaps 30-40% by 2013) sales, then the rest of the concerns will be left to a sound mobile launch strategy to be answered.
To learn how one ecommerce merchant overcame the fear of going mobile, read our mobile commerce success story.
