Mobile Devices and their Impact on eCommerce
Heres a quick summary of mobile devices and their impact on ecommerce.
Mobile devices are ubiquitous.
More than 50 percent of Americans have a smartphone and that percentage is increasing.
Tablets are replacing desktops and laptops.
Tablets are a preferred platform for ecommerce transactions.
Smartphones are used more for research than actual purchases.
Apple iOS devices are the most heavily used devices for commerce.
People are becoming increasingly dependent on their smartphones its the first and last thing many adults do every day.
When most ecommerce merchants think of mobile commerce, the first thing that comes to mind is closing transactions. But there are many other activities that are being done daily on mobile devices that may impact your future online business strategies.
Will all of them affect your revenue stream? That depends on the products you sell. As an example, for a long time online merchants benefitted from showrooming, the practice of using a smartphone to research products and do price comparisons while in a brick-and-mortar store. Ecommerce merchants could simply present a better price, free shipping, and possibly no tax and close a deal by being present in an organic search.
Today, its much harder to get seen in a mobile organic search because the volume of advertising is much higher. Brick-and-mortar retailers are fighting back by offering price matching and free shipping for out-of-stock items. Consumers also use shopping apps for comparison shopping as they showroom, making it more difficult for online retailers to be found.
This article introduces many mobile activities and applications that you should be aware of as you evaluate mobile strategies. I am an iPhone user and all the apps listed here are on the iOS platform. I am not recommending any of these apps they are simply the first ones that appeared in different categories I searched on, which usually included dozens of similar apps.
Ecommerce
Lets start with ecommerce. All online merchants should develop a mobile friendly store. There are several options to do this.
Responsive site. Adapts to virtually any device or screen size.
Mobile site template. Presents your store in a mobile-friendly manner.
Third-party hosted site. Manages your store and displays your product catalog as if it were part of your main domain.
Your mobile store should deliver a customer experience that is consistent with your desktop version. You should include the same product content, branding, ratings and reviews, pricing, search, and navigation. You may present some of content in a more mobile friendly way like tabs for detailed information but its important to offer all of your product content.
To be successful on mobile devices, include alternative methods of payment like PayPal to eliminate the need for your buyers to have to fumble around with credit cards while making a mobile purchase.
Mobile transaction currently account for about 10 percent of all commerce in the U.S. This number is expected to increase significantly over the next few years, led by sales on tablets.
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