Mobile is eComm's Future

Are you prepared for Black Friday 2013?

[lorax]

Mobile Device Internet Traffic
2009: 1%
2012: 13%
2015: 80% (projected)

Consumers Visiting Retail Sites on Black Friday using Mobile Devices
2011: 17%
2012: 24%

Black Friday Sales via Mobile Devices
2011: 9.8%
2012: 16%

Via Purdue University CIO. Video "The new logistics of Knowledge" : [purdue.edu...] , citations included.

The expectation is this Black Friday's sales will double last years. Sites with mobile solutions in place will stand to gain especially among the younger market. So are you doing anything special to prepare for BF2013?

[ken_b]

How are they defining "mobile" for this, what devices?

[lorax]

I believe the common definition is something you can easily hold in one hand while working. Laptops don't quite fit this def nor do notebooks. Tablets and mobile phones do.

No matter how you define it, the trend is toward smaller devices/screen sizes that free up the user to bring their INet connections with them wherever they may go.

[dmorison]

I've never actually bought anything from my phone that isn't for my phone, e.g. an app, or an MP3.

I've certainly researched stuff on my phone to get some idea of price, but it's always way too fiddly to go through to checkout and enter my delivery and credit card details, so I wait until I get home.

[lorax]

Neither have I dmorison but we're behind the curve. The millennials grew up with mobile and they live on and shop with mobile. Just watch a 20 something for a few minutes and you'll see what I mean.

[dmorison]

We must be evolving smaller fingers! But yes - I do know what you mean. And of course it will only become easier as payment methods become more tightly integrated with mobile devices.

[votrechien]

There's no doubt that mobile is the future. However, I don't think anyone has really gotten a good grasp on how to handle development for mobile.

Probably four out of five mobile versions of sites I visit I request the desktop version because the mobile version is so limiting. Plus the mobile OSes do a pretty good job of presenting full versions of websites. In reality, most of us browse our most popular websites from mobile and desktop platforms and don't want a totally different experience when using an iPad opposed to an iBook.

[incrediBILL]

Mobile is the present.

People that haven't prepared for it aren't participating it and don't see it because they don't have a mobile site to show visitors in the first place.

I don't think anyone has really gotten a good grasp on how to handle development for mobile.

That would be incorrect.

The problem is smaller sites aren't even bothering with RWD or using any payment methods that make it simpler and faster to checkout.

FWIW, we do a lot of shopping from tablets and phones and tapping out credit card numbers and shipping addresses on mobile simply won't fly. Any site using PayPal or Amazon's payment gateway are probably closer to closing that sale than sites with traditional keyboard intensive checkouts.

[lorax]

But is anyone doing anything different in preparation for this Black Friday 2013?

[MarkOly]

I finally upgraded to a smartphone a couple months ago. I spent a few hours poking around and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to browse regular desktop versions of sites. On my own site, it was nothing but a breeze to checkout and enter all my data. I was ecstatic about it.

I came away from it all wondering why we even need special mobile versions of sites. I'm sure there are plenty of exceptions, but for me, the rule is to use the standard desktop version of a site and avoid the limited mobile version at all costs. I should mention that this is on a Samsung Galaxy S3. I know iPhones are smaller, but I can only imagine that screens will get larger and larger. I'm sure iPhones will catch up by the next product refresh. I can't imagine that any new phones will be smaller than my S3.

I have fat fingers and bad eyesight. And since owning this phone, I have yet to find reason for needing a mobile version of any ecommerce site. Only if Google starts penalizing sites for not having a mobile version will I have anything to worry about on Black Friday.

[incrediBILL]

And since owning this phone, I have yet to find reason for needing a mobile version of any ecommerce site.

Maybe it's because you're new to it, but the desktop versions, while functional, get real old real quick.

Scrolling all over the place, side to side, enlarging and shrinking isn't a good user experience. Although it works, it's a PITA. A site with RWD doesn't lose any functionality, it just automatically formats to fit the phone presenting the data in a better layout without panning and zooming, aka annoying.

Personally, for me if I get easily frustrated shuffling your site around I just bail and go to sites that already have a better experience like many others already so as well. I know it's not just me as I listen to my wife (We have 2 Gallaxy phones and an iPhone so we use both types) and my friends as to what they do while shopping online and it seems pretty universal that the frustration level builds quicker on the small devices and people bounce to better sites.

What I'm curious is why the topic is building for Black Friday 2013 when people are losing money TODAY?

RWD isn't hard, there are templates for many stores and CMS already and the upgrade for that aspect can happen in as little as a day or two, it's pretty painless if you have the right software and the right developer doing the upgrade.

What I'm more concerned with myself is the payment systems as filling in all the CC and shipping details per each site is a real pain. Google Checkout is shutting down leaving just PayPal and Amazon payments and many merchants seem to resist those options and I used to be one of them but my checkout rates actually increased when I added Paypal.

[particleman]

While google is deprecating Checkout, Wallet does precisely what a mobile site needs. One touch checkout using existing payment info. The infographic even demonstrates it.

[developers.google.com...]

I'm not aware of a way to do this with apple/itunes accounts other than in app purchasing.


Mobile in my experience is something that is really really easy to get wrong. If your users are switching to the desktop site, then you probably don't have it right. Ideally it would present the same information in an easy to view way on a phone, but you'd be surprised how many sites get that wrong. I'm developing a new site right at this moment that is breaking some new ground in my niche as far as capabilities targeted at mobile and tablets. According to my traffic logs it simply needs to be done.

[jrockfl]

We have a desktop version and also a mobile version. We are in the process of a redesign and moving to a responsive design and layout. This will allow us to only maintain one web site instead of two.

We also in the process of retaking the product photos. They were all previously done in house and we have invested in having them professionally done.

We have already upgraded our server. We had one server for the database and web sites, now we have two. One for the web sites and one for the database.

We will be stocking up on inventory. We pretty much sold out of everything on Black Friday and did not have much for December. We had almost 4000 orders last year.