Rising to the challenge of mobile’s inevitable takeover
There’s no doubt that mobile has taken over the planet. It’s estimated that 64% of the total population of the UK will be mobile users by the end of 2017, 79% of which will be smartphone users.
This shift towards being constantly connected to one another and to the internet has had a huge impact on how most people live, communicate, and, of course, shop.
For retailers, mobile is not simply a new channel to experiment with, it is a fundamental shift in consumer behaviour that requires a long term strategic approach.
Smartphone’s new rule
The majority of people are now smartphone first, and increasingly smartphone only, which has taken its toll on traditional in-store shopping.
The high street has been hard hit with more high street stores closing each week. Mobile is eating into desktop’s share of orders and traffic and has continued to outgrow desktop and tablet in this respect too. By the end of 2017 it’s expected that 60% of digital traffic will come from mobile, and 86% of shoppers in the UK have already made a purchase via mobile at some point this year.
The movement towards mobile has enabled consumers to be better informed on the go, and shop when is most convenient for them. Sixty percent of shoppers start their journey on one device and complete their transaction on another. Additionally as many as 77% of consumers are now using a mobile device in store to help them shop.
Mobile’s conversion gap
Traditional ecommerce websites are optimised to be used on a desktop, with the user interface designed for a larger screen, interactions with a mouse, and the option of heavier page load with imagery and videos. This doesn’t always translate on the mobile version of the site, which is often simply a collapsed version of the desktop site.
The huge challenge across the industry is that this approach isn’t working well enough.
Mobile web can be difficult for users to navigate when menus are hidden, buttons are too small to click with a finger, and pages take too long to load, even on the fastest 4G networks.
All of this adds up to mean that conversion rates on mobile web are significantly lower than on desktop sites, with latest stats showing global desktop conversion rates at 4.14% and mobile web 1.55%.
This, compounded by the fact that more and more traffic is coming from mobile, means that retail businesses are seeing their conversion rates go down and online revenue drop, no matter how much their overall traffic is increasing.
App’s chance to shine, your chance to gain
Leading retailers have recognised this, and are launching apps, which are specifically built for mobile, and delivering much improved results.
In fact, according to Criteo research, retailers that have invested in apps are now seeing 55% of mobile revenue through apps vs 45% for mobile browsers. These retailers are investing in apps, because they see much better sales metrics, alongside increased loyalty and frequency of purchase.
Its highly likely your customers will already be shopping on apps elsewhere, and given the short attention span on mobile if retailers don’t offer an app it’s likely those customers will go elsewhere for more convenience. This is evidenced by retailers like Amazon, ASOS and Missguided who continue to disrupt the traditional retail model, and all of whom generate a very high percentage of their sales through their apps.
As part of our research as knowledge partner for InternetRetailing’s latest IREU Top500 report, we found that 369 of the leading 500 retailers offer a retail app. However, of those apps, only 67% were in fact transactional. This shows that just over a third of retailers with apps aren’t benefitting from the extra sales channel that their app opens up.
With mobile traffic only on the up, the consumer expectations bar set high, and the competition leading the way, retailers without an app risk falling behind.
Reported by Samantha Rigg
