There’s absolutely no doubt that the use of mobiles for shopping continues to rise every year among consumers interested in interacting with businesses that provide a friendly shopping experience on mobile devices.
Mobile web adoption is growing 8 times faster than web adoption did in the 1990s and early 2000s, which is startling.
The time for businesses to become a part of this transition in consumer behavior was yesterday, the longer your business decides to wait to become mobile friendly the longer it will take to reap the benefits of the growing market developing on mobile devices.
Hire mobile app development company to focus on mobile commerce to the continued growth of your e-commerce website.
Here are five reasons why mobile commerce is the right approach for your organization for the long-term:
Convenient Shopping Across All Devices
As of today, 15% of all Internet traffic occurs on mobiles globally, says Mary Meeker in her annual Internet Trends report. It is safe to say that wherever and whenever people are moving about their day they’re also choosing to browse the web on their mobile phone as part of their regular habits.
If someone has the time to shop on the go then they’ll most likely be shopping on your online store from their mobile device. Even if your website is not mobile optimized, many mobile shoppers are still savvy enough to browse around, fill their cart and finally, make a purchase.
If you have an e-commerce store, it’s most likely already happening on your website. If this is the case, it is time to make the experience even more convenient for your traffic and therefore, more profitable for your business.
Take a look at the total traffic to your website and dive into what percentage is from mobile. Imagine how much better a shopper’s experience would be on your website if it was optimized to suit the device they are currently using, not to mention the increase in revenue your e-commerce store could pull in over time.
If they are already shopping your website that is not mobile friendly, you’ve only got more to gain from providing added convenience.
Mobile shopping based on convenience is happening across the globe in three forms:
1. Simultaneous Usage
The process of using more than one device at the same time, like a tablet and a laptop or a mobile phone with a computer in a retail store, to complete an activity that could be related or unrelated on both devices like shopping.
2. Sequential Usage
The process of moving from one device to another at different times to accomplish a task like locating products online using a tablet and then finishing your purchase on your mobile phone.
3. Singular Usage
Using one device to complete an activity online, most common with the use of laptops or mobile devices since many actions are often performed consistently on one device or the other.
As an ecommerce web development company or as an e-commerce store owner, your main goals is to offer a simple, enjoyable and easy to navigate experience for your web visitors. 30% of mobile shoppers abandon a transaction if the experience is not optimized for mobile. The more intuitive your store is, the easier it is for a shopper to purchase what they were looking for on any device they may currently be using.
The Effectiveness of Mobile Retargeting
According to Google, 90% of people move between devices to accomplish a goal, whether that’s on smartphones, PCs, tablets or TVs. Each device a person uses is an opportunity to influence a user to continue towards a purchase on your e-commerce store.
Mobile retargeting, similarly to display advertising on a desktop or laptop computer, serves ads to individuals who have recently visited your website to entice them to return and purchase items they either looked at onsite or items they placed in their cart.
The major difference with mobile retargeting is that these ads will follow a user on their other devices like their mobile phones or tablets as opposed to just on the laptop or desktop computer.
Focusing on mobile commerce is crucial due to the efficiency of retargeting ads on mobile in driving revenue for your business for a few reasons.
- Click through rates on mobile display ads are typically between 2 – 5%, as opposed to traditional methods which are now less than 1%, says marketing firm Location3. This is because the market on mobile is not saturated yet with tons of other advertising, making it one of the prime reasons to invest in retargeting on these devices before the click-through rate falls as marketers will continue to use the platform.
- Display ads resonate more effectively on mobile since they have a bigger impact when seen on a tinier screen than on a laptop or desktop computer.
- More mobile display ads can be purchased on a cost-per-click basis as opposed to cost-per-impression which is a nice change, since paying based off clicks means your business is paying for action on an ad and not just the fact that someone happened to see it.
Use a portion of your marketing that is typically associated with display advertising, and spend a percentage of it on mobile retargeting ads to see if they give your business a higher return than usual. It’s a worthwhile exercise to see how your company fairs on a growing channel.
The growth of Mobile Payments
There are many paths to take when it comes to mobile payments as an e-commerce merchant. Overall it is being where the customer is, and providing them with easy solutions to their needs.
Many customers find mobile payment solutions very effective in completing a purchase quickly; and it, therefore, makes mobile commerce all the more profitable for your business. There are two solutions among many to start with when it comes to mobile payments.
One being that your e-commerce store should be compatible with the most widely used mobile payment platforms on the market today, some of these include Google Wallet, PayPal, Intuit GoPayment, Square, VeriFone SAIL, LevelUp, Venmo and PayAnywhere among others.
Secondly, it is important to overhaul checkout experience for mobile users. For instance, Travelocity reduced their cart abandonment by allowing customers to auto scan their credit card with their camera when using a mobile device to check out, since many customers would get frustrated entering their credit card number in from their mobile phone when trying to book last minute plane tickets.
Apply this same thinking to your online business to take full advantage of mobile and its ability to increase revenue if you identify the unique opportunities within your customer base.
Experimenting is risky, but being complacent is even riskier, take the leap in the right direction by testing out what could work for your business when it comes to using mobile payments.
Mobile Improves the Retail Shopping Experience
When approaching mobile, many businesses often disregard the connection they can make between their mobile presence and their in-store experience but there’s lots of potential for impactful collaboration.
Syncing these two interactions for the customer can help lead to higher sales and long-term loyalty, look to McDonald’s recent experiment with in-store loyalty as an example of this execution.
The in-store shopping experience is in the process of being completely disrupted, here is how your online and brick and mortar stores can look to synch up and benefit:
1. Additional Product Info
Confirm that all your inventory in-store is connected with your online product in order to provide in-store customers with more information about your product lines. If they are interested in learning more at the point of sale in the retail store or later on in the buying process, they can always do so by looking up the product they saw in person online from their mobile device.
2. Offers, Promotions, and Discounts
Encourage the use of your mobile website or app in-stores by offering promotions or exclusive offers for customers that take an action online from their mobile phone in-store like sharing their location or sharing that they redeemed your company’s deal. This is beneficial to your business because the more actions you are able to attribute from in-store shoppers, the more actionable date you’ll be able to collect and analyze for the future growth of your business.
3. Scalable Social Sharing
Bring word of mouth marketing to your physical stores by bringing customers into the conversation on mobile-friendly social networks like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and others. Share what’s happening at your various locations to help paint a picture of your product assortment, your staff, principles as a company, any indoor events and promotions or sales that your audience online would be interested in knowing about, to help drive them to your stores.
4. Rich Media Integrations
Engage many more customers with content online like photos and videos. It is beneficial to incorporate this type of content with your in-store experiences as well. Add a link or call to action that directs your in-store visitors to visit a corresponding page on your website about a particular product in-store to help enhance the perception of this item through a video or photos showing how it is made, produced or used. Offering value at any point in the buying process is what helps influence potential customers to make a purchase, which is why an enhanced mobile experience in your retail store can help facilitate this value.
Mobile Commerce is Expected to Quadruple to $31 Billion in 5 Years
According to research, mobile sales will make up 44.7% of total online sales in the USA by 2019.
The report noted that one of the main reasons many consumers are not shopping on their phones is because many retailers make it difficult to check out, pay or even zoom in properly on products from a mobile phone.
The fact that many businesses are not optimized for mobile is actually an advantage for your company to pull in a large sum of the total revenue mobile commerce is predicted to generate in the coming years. Use the lack of other companies innovating to take hold of your market and own the market on mobile, impacting your bottom line.
To ensure mobile commerce is profitable for your business to be sure to ensure your website loads quickly since 71% of global mobile web users expect websites to load as quickly, almost as quickly, or faster on their mobile phone compared to the computer they use at home.
Make sure that transactions are simple to get through since consumers expect transactions to be easier on mobile than they are offline or on a desktop computer.
Focus on engaging user experience from start to finish, since 61% of people have a better opinion of brands when they offer a good mobile experience.