If you aren’t aware by now, let’s set this straight: more people are buying things from a phone than they have ever done, and it just keeps growing. There, I’ve stated our position once and for all. If you own an e-commerce store and aren’t really thinking about mobile users, it’s time you did it.
I’m not going to go into the obvious on this. You need a responsive website or at least a specific mobile website. No, in this blog we’re going to assume if you haven’t done that, you’re on your way and these items are things you should check off your list to help your website get ready for mobile commerce.
Lower Site Speed
Yes, it’s true, you probably have more computing power in your pocket than it took to put a man on the moon. But, just because we all have a small super computer in our hand and a network that can get you information faster than at any point in history doesn’t mean that a focus on site speed isn’t important. It’s even more important in e-commerce.
Why? Because e-commerce simply has more moving parts to keep it running than a traditional marketing website. Managing and calling up databases take time. So everything you can possibly do to minimize the amount of time it takes to load a web page will help you keep that user doing what you want, using the website.
Here’s a few small things you can do to help your site speed.
- Leverage Browser Caching
- Increase your server’s power (more RAM, better processors, etc.)
- Optimize Images (compressing image file sizes)
Shorten the Checkout Process
A long checkout process is a lot like standing in line at the grocery store. You know that there’s 24 lanes in the store, why don’t they open more than 3? If someone’s on your website and the checkout process takes 5 steps, they know that they’ve checked out somewhere else that’s easier, and guess where they’ll be shopping next time.
Speaking of return customers, especially those that have taken the time to set up an account, why do they need to wait at all? You already have their shipping information, don’t make them have to put it in again. If you can take a 3 step process into a 1 or 2 step one, do it.
Include Mobile Payment Methods
In keeping in the theme of shortening the checkout process. If your website can use mobile payment processing instead of having your users add their card number every time, that’s going to really help.
Of course not everyone has Google Wallet or Apple Pay set up on their phone, but for those who do, they’ll love you for it.
Social Marketing / Advertising
On average we spend an 1 hr 45 mins on social media every day, and most of us spend far more. Social media marketing can help you move specific products to people that are in your core demographic, or have visited your website.
This is especially important for mobile users, as the majority of our social media usage happens when we’re on our phones. (probably standing in that grocery line)
Proof is in Data
We looked at our own e-commerce websites that we manage and market. If you look at just 2 years ago the growth in mobile visitors, it’s pretty incredible. While on this website the number one buyer is still on desktop (and that’s true across all e-commerce) mobile buyers are still a good chunk of sales for this company.
Now, looking at just six months ago you can see that as we’ve improved the usability of the website, the number of mobile visitors and buyers continues to increase.
It doesn’t take much to realize that in 2018 there’s going to be even more mobile commerce growth and it is our job as a development and marketing team to help you prepare for that.