mobile commerce strategy and mobile commerce …...e-commerce strategy is not and should not be your...

Mobile CommercePart II-B: Increasing Adoption

Merchant & User Behavior

https://faisalkhan.com© Copyright Faisal Khan 2015. All Rights Reserved.

Mobile Commerce - Part II(B): Increasing Adoption

Increasing Merchant adoption for mobile commerce hinges on two factors

- Merchants having a Mobile Strategy - Understanding Mobile Conversion

This presentation briefly talks about these two elements and how the thinking both from the mobile operators and merchants needs to be aligned in the same direction.

https://faisalkhan.com


For starters, lets stop calling it “e-commerce”.

When we cite “e-commerce” studies have shown that the image conjured up is automatically that of the desktop website, i.e. home computer/laptop based access of a wider-screen, browser based shopping experience.

In a survey, when asked to think of CNN.com and how it looks, 100% of the respondents in survey cited or referred to the desktop version.

No one paid attention to the mobile version.



http://CNN.com


Traffic is migrating from the Desktop to Mobile

Mobile web traffic is on the rise. Ask any mobile operator and they will tell you.

In 2012 mobile traffic was 10-12% (on average) of a merchant’s web traffic.

In less than 3 years, it is now at 50% (on average).

By 2017 mobile traffic will account for 70%-77% of all web traffic for any given online merchant.




Is the Merchant Aware of Mobile Traffic?

Short answer: No.

Most merchants todays are not paying attention to analysts that provide device information.

Web traffic analysts that merchants look at is mostly page views, visitors, uniques, bounce rate, in/out landing pages, etc.




Why is Mobile Traffic Important?

Visitors = Potential Customers.

If the merchant is not paying attention to a mobile visitor, chances are the potential will never be converted to a successful sale.

Reasons: Too many factors that will enable cart abandonment (which we will discuss briefly ahead).




So What Is a Mobile Strategy?

In short, addressing the behavioural economic elements of a mobile visitor, and converting them to a customer.

Another way of looking at it: for mobile conversion to happen, you have to look and align all elements of your website to facilitate a mobile sale.

Without a mobile strategy, you are forcefully juxtaposing a web sale on a mobile which has a very high cart abandonment rate.




Okay, so I now need a mobile strategy, what next?

Best to seek professional help. Cannot stress this enough.

Learn what steps need to be made for your offering to be mobile enabled sales, factors that will enable mobile commerce and hence increase mobile conversion rates.

Plan it out -> Execute -> Test -> Measure -> Correct.




Some elements that help in mobile conversion:

How much of my website traffic is mobile enabled? Has the website been optimized for mobile traffic? (Is your site responsive)? Images of the products you sell, are they optimized for the small real-estate space a mobile has to offer? Is the UX intuitive? Checkout - is it painful or frictionless? How big is your catalog? Would you be porting all the SKUs on mobile? (Some products sell better on mobile/desktop, whilst others only on desktop) How does your payment platform affect speed during checkout? Do you incorporate the preferred (local) payment method? Is your preferred payment method secure and frictionless? Will it integrate with your shopping cart? How easy is sign-up for a first time user?





Content relevance is a huge issue. Mobile has limited screen size and patience. Content that was good for the desktop, doesn’t necessarily translate well on the mobile. Being concise with words is a huge challenge for many merchants who tend to ignore this advice, resulting in long scrolls which aids towards cart abandonment.

From a customer’s perspective, some more questions to ask yourself: Is the experience worthwhile? Did you waste a lot of time just waiting for the page to load? Was there too much information? Were the images clear? Was the description too long? Did reviews have to be on the same page?





Zooming & Pinching images. Are the images optimized for delivery over say 3G networks. Non-optimized images take longer to load, zooming/pinching is required often, which is frustrating. Large image sizes = more data usage on mobile plans. Relevant number of images to show. Remember: desktop/laptop based access have the luxury of higher bandwidth and patience, mobile does not. Have merchants done A/B testing on the type of mobile layout their customers prefer? What are your load times compared to the competition?





Forms! How much form-filling will you require users to do? Are the forms mobile enabled? What is the average time it takes to fill out registration forms? Do you provide OAuth based login/registration? Have you optimized forms so that the minimum amount of information is entered? Do you have form data checks in place? Have you checked if your dropdown menus, checkboxes and radio buttons fit in the screen? Is the form large enough to allow people with fat fingers to fill it out? Are elements too close to each other? Etc.





How painful is checkout? Have you done a survey to test? What sort of security options are presented to the user that their data is safe? Do you flood the user with multiple payment options? Do you pick up information from user’s registration so that keying in data that you already have is not necessary? Can you payment checkout be done in under 15-20 seconds? The faster the payment can be done, in the most convenient manner, the more it contributes towards mobile commerce conversion.




Summary

E-Commerce strategy is NOT and should NOT be your Mobile Commerce Strategy.

Start aiding your merchant ecosystem to enable them to learn and educate themselves on mobile commerce.

Tell them to STOP investing in the desktop.

Incentives their mobile strategy execution

Pay close attention to mobile analytics

Pay closer attention to the User Experience



mobile commerce strategy and mobile commerce …...e-commerce strategy is not and should not be your...

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