Back to Basics: Remembering the Convenience in Mobile Commerce

Business owners who are looking for ways in which they can capture some of the vastly growing mobile commerce market must begin with the basics, experts say.

And responsive website design is about as basic as it gets today (responsive design refers to websites that automatically adjust to optimally fit the smaller screens of smartphones or larger screens of tablets, for example).

“It’s all about delivering a great experience for the customer,” Mark Tack, vice president of marketing for Chicago-based Vibes, tells Mobile Commerce Daily. “Putting yourself in your customer’s shoes and saying how is my Web site going to look on my customers’ smartphones has to be a top priority. It just has to be a top priority.

While converting to responsive design is essential, business owners must do more than just ensure that the site fits on the user’s screen. They must also ensure that it’s easy to navigate on mobile.

Even websites that have a significant amount of online sales will fail if they take the exact same approach to accommodating customers on mobile devices as they do desktop computers. This is because the way in which consumers browse and shop on mobile devices is vastly different than on a laptop or desktop.

Although some consumers are still hesitant to make purchases on their mobile devices, mobile shopping is definitely on the rise. The bottom line? Now is the perfect time to position yourself to be ready for mobile transactions.

“Data shows across all of our client base that in a lot of cases a majority of retailers’ Web site traffic is now coming through their mobile Web site versus traditional desktop,” Tack adds. “That has resulted in a lot of retailers and brands really making sure their Web site is easy to use.”

Back to Basics: Remembering the Convenience in Mobile Commerce