Whenever I hear sellers say they are currently redesigning their website, it makes me feel like if they bragged about purchasing a new fax machine. Over again we see signs that in a few years or even months merchants’ websites will become obsolete as online shopping is increasingly being confined to mobile apps.
A few stats that confirm this trend :
- in March 2016 online sales grew by 11% while mobile sales grew by 101%
- mobile is how customers learn about your product even if they end up buying from their computers – 40% of desktop transactions in the fourth quarter of 2015 took place after a customer visited the retailer’s app or mobile site
- buyers find it easier to shop from their mobile phones than from desktop – mobile phones have ever bigger screens allowing to make an informed purchasing decision and it takes less time to switch them on than it does for a computer
- buyers’ shopping behaviours are evolving as they move to “snacking” – making small purchases whenever they have some spare time – in their bed, while waiting at the dentist’s or even in their bathroom
- when “snacking” on their mobile phones buyers are highly dependant on the mobile apps of the few biggest online marketplaces – eBay and Amazon alone constituted 27% of North American online retail sales in 2015
What you can do :
- there is clearly no point in building your own mobile app especially if you are selling niche products – mobile phone users become increasingly less likely to install new apps and once they have installed them – to allow notifications. We have to get used to the idea that mcommerce of the future will be split among two, three dominant apps
- open a marketplace store – if you haven’t yet done so, do it now! there is an overwhelming choice of marketplaces which have an advantage over you as buyers trust them and know them – eBay and Amazon are household names and even small marketplaces have more money to invest in marketing than you do
- make sure your website is mobile optimised – the less content you have on it, the better! Think about eBay’s recent decision to change their sellers’ listings so that they can be easily viewed on a small screen – product descriptions have to contain up to 800 characters and cannot include any active content (JavaScript, Flash)
- offer payments with PayPal / Amazon payments – if a mobile buyer has to fill in a lengthy form in order to complete the purchase, the odds are high she will give up before completing the checkout. Allowing your buyers to log in with PayPal or Amazon in order to make a payment makes it easier for them to pay without leaving the mobile device. It also helps instill trust as PayPal and Amazon offer buyers protection from fraud.
- do it quickly! – mcommerce still accounts for less sales than ecommerce but if the current growth rates continue, this will change soon! You don’t want to wake up in a few months next to a brand new fax machine only to realise there is no one left to send a fax to as they have all switched to email
- don’t forget that at WebInterpret we can create a mobile-optimised version of your website in various languages AND help you promoting it abroad.
ecommerce ninja blog 