Each week, we publish a mishmash of ecommerce related, insight infused articles for you to smash through. Just as we collect business information across all of a merchant’s channels in a single place, we’re doing the same for ecommerce related content from a variety of top tier content creators. If you find the material filling your appetite for knowledge, feel free to share this post, as well as any article you see here.
This mishmash has gone mobile. There’s no longer any doubt that mobile commerce is real, with mobile channels driving a hugely significant amount of traffic to online merchants. But issues and rising trends are still out there, whether it concerns mobile UX, mobile search rankings, mobile promotions, or the growing supremacy of smartphones.
Battle of the Mobile Machines
The two main mobile machines are tablets and smartphones. Historically, tablets have had a more successful conversion rate compared to smartphones, with the latter having higher traffic rates. But things seem to be changing given the holiday season’s performance. eMarketer’s latest mobile forecast predicts that more than half of all digital buyers are expected to use smartphones to make a mobile purchase come 2017. Tablet sales are also expected to taper off over time as mobile phone experiences become increasingly optimized.
Missing from the Mobile Experience
But if consumers are meandering around on mobile channels checking out products, why is that conversion rate low? Here’s a list of common mobile problems from Birate Insights based on a mobile study of more than 100,000 online shoppers. The issues are what you might expect from your own experiences using mobile – hard to enlarge / click in the right place was the top problem, slow load times came in second, and data security came in last place.
Making a Mobile Offer
Mobile is an always present, always available channel for online merchants. And, according to mobile research by Accenture, smartphone-wielding consumers are more than happy to accept real-time promotions when they’re online anytime, anywhere. Nearly half of respondents to Accenture’s 10,000+, global study wanted such promotions, with the ability to use credit coupons and discounts automatically coming in close second. There’s a slab of useful information here related to mobile commerce, whether it’s consumer or retailer focused, so give it a look.
Making the Move Toward Mobile Video Ads
On the advertising side of things, mobile is just as up-and-coming. In the past couple of years, advertising money has increasingly funneled toward mobile devices, from in-app to native. But ad gurus are increasingly finding that mobile video ads are providing significant value when it comes to brand awareness and engagement, as opposed to static, display ads. Furthermore, digital video ad spending as a whole is forecasted to rise in the coming years according to more mobile research by eMarketer.
Moving Up in the Mobile Rankings
But what’s the point of all that mobile traffic if you don’t rank in the SERPs? Econsultancy has three simple ways to improve mobile search based on research by Searchmetrics. Split into three parts – UX, technical aspects, and content – there are concrete things you can do to provide some ‘umph’ to your rankings, like simple designs, reasonable file sizes and load times, as well as the ever-present recommendation of creating high quality content.
