Is Responsive Overhyped?

April 28, 2015 app, app design, apps, ecommerce, mobile, mobile app, mobile apps, mobile commerce, mobile marketing, mobile site, responsive, Responsive Web Design, RWD

Is Responsive Overhyped?

Responsive Web Design is all the rage. All of a sudden, we hear advocates asserting that “responsive is the way to develop sites.” Or “Google recommends responsive for SEO.”

Observers might think that this approach has become the de facto standard among e-commerce leaders. But a close look at the top companies in the Internet Retailer rankings, reveals a surprising reality:

Among these top 16 retailers, only 2 have gone with responsive, despite obviously having the resources to do so if they wished.

So, what’s the disconnect here? Why hasn’t this hot-trending technique taken hold among the industry leaders? Are we confusing mobile-friendly as mobile-optimized?

Pros & Cons Summary

The table below summarizes the key advantages and disadvantages of responsive and dedicated approaches to mobile.

	Responsive	Dedicated
Advantages	Satisfies Google’s mobile-friendly requirement Only 1 site to maintain leads to a low cost of ownership	The mobile experience is not tethered to the desktop experience More cost-effective if you want to maintain mobile as a distinct experience
Disadvantages	Slow performance Higher one-time cost Disruptive to the desktop site	Two sites to maintain

What Is Responsive Web Design?

We can answer this from 3 vantage points:

Technical: Responsive is the use of a media query in a website’s HTML, giving formatting instructions to the browser, and instructing the browser how to reformat the page to fit the width of the screen.
Design: a design approach that allows different device types to be served by a single set of HTML pages.
Strategy: an approach of “one site fits all” for handling different types of devices.

Another way of looking at responsive is how Google positions responsive alongside the 2 other recommended approaches to mobile:

Responsive web design: Serves the same HTML code on the same URL regardless of the user’s device (desktop, tablet, mobile, non-visual browser), but can render the display differently (i.e., “respond”) based on the screen size. Responsive design is Google’s recommended design pattern.[1]
Dynamic serving [aka Adaptive]: Uses the same URL regardless of device, but generates a different version of HTML for different device types based on what the server knows about the user’s browser.
Separate URLs [aka Dedicated]: Serves different code to each device, and on separate URLs. This configuration tries to detect the users’ device, then redirects to the appropriate page using HTTP redirects] along with the Vary HTTP header.

[1] Google goes on to say that they do not favor any particular URL format as long as the page(s) and all page assets are accessible to all Googlebot user agents.

Responsive Strengths

Responsive is an elegant solution for handling small screen sizes. By reprogramming the desktop site’s HTML and redesigning the layout, site owners can deliver pages that know how to adjust for screen size via a media query, that lets the html respond to the browser’s screen width.

Responsive meets the standards Google has set for being mobile-friendly. Due to this, responsive sites, properly done, will be saved from Google’s Mobilegeddon.

And because of the “one-site-fits-all” approach, there are fewer content elements to control and therefore fewer management tasks. Advocates of responsive say this leads to a lower cost of ownership.

Responsive Weaknesses

Responsive has one glaring problem: slow page load speeds. A responsive page works by delivering more content to the smartphone, and then asking the mobile browser to sort things out based on its screen width. This performance gap was reported by Internet Retailer:

It turns out responsive design sites are slow on smartphones, very slow. That’s the conclusion that emerges from an Internet Retailer-exclusive, monthlong study of 12 e-retail responsive design sites conducted by web and mobile performance testing, monitoring and analytics firm Keynote.

A secondary weakness is that deploying responsive is complex and can be disruptive to the main website. As a result, responsive deployments tend to be more expensive than dedicated projects.

Dedicated Strengths

Dedicated is the better choice when a retailer actually wants to have the mobile experience different than the desktop experience. The “one-site-fits-all” advocates might ask why you’d ever want to deliver different experiences. There are several compelling reasons because – as we all know – mobile is so much more than just a small screen:

Mobile UI Capabilities – Mobile brings enhanced capabilities for interaction – such as location, touch, voice, camera, fingerprint, and motion. All can add richness to the mobile experience. Today’s desktop site does not support these capabilities, nor does it need to.
Different User Circumstances – Consumers have their phones in many places and settings that the desktop site needn’t worry about: in stores; on sports fields, in the garage, where the retailer’s product is being used; or in social settings. Most retailers can find new advantages here.
Different Desired Outcomes – Because of its omnipresence, mobile is the ideal omni-channel device. We know consumers use mobile for product discovery & research, even when they complete the purchase in a different channel – online, in-store, or call center. Why wouldn’t the mobile UI help facilitate this in a way that’s different than the desktop? Different calls to action; and different ways to prioritize them.

Dedicated Weaknesses

The conventional wisdom is that a dedicated site is something else to manage and that it represents an additional cost of ownership. Conversely, the counter view is that dedicated is a more cost-effective way to manage your mobile customers.

In addition, it is often asserted that Google will give an advantage to responsive sites. But, as discussed in the What Is Responsive section above, Google states that it does not favor responsive over dedicated.

Perspective

Responsive is a good choice for adapting a desktop site for the small screen.
As a web development technique, it’s an elegant way to deliver a small screen experience.
Dedicated sites are the better choice if the retailer wants the mobile experience to take full advantage of uniquely mobile capabilities.
For retailers who want to get the most out of mobile, dedicated sites make it easier to build a mobile-specific experience — one that takes advantage of unique mobile capabilities that the desktop site isn’t geared for. And to deliver different calls-to-action that optimize across all channels.

Responsive is a very useful technique for adjusting web pages to screen size. Due to this, developers love it as a tool. Unbound uses it as one of several methods for integrating the mobile experience into the retailer’s web infrastructure.

But that doesn’t make it a good mobile strategy.

If mobile-friendly is good enough for your company, then responsive is a fine choice. Comparatively, a better choice for your company might be to take full advantage of mobile-unique capabilities and deliver a distinct mobile experience. Unbound loves working with retailers who want to make the most out of mobile.

Keith Lietzke is the Co-Founder of Unbound Commerce. You can reach him at [email protected].

Understanding The “Mobile Commerce Gap”: 5 Things Every Online Retailer Should Know

April 6, 2015 app, apps, ecommerce, gap, m-commerce, mcommerce, mobile, mobile app, mobile apps, mobile commerce, mobile commerce gap, mobile marketing, mobile site

THIS POST WAS ORIGINALLY POSTED IN 2011 BUT REMAINS RELEVANT TODAY. The numbers projected in this post have virtually ALL been exceeded. Some, by a wide margin. It’s exceptionally important to understand the Mobile Commerce Gap.

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From May 24, 2011, by Wilson Kerr.

Understanding the “Mobile Commerce Gap”: 5 Things Every Online Retailer Should Know

Sometime this year, 50% of Americans will own a web-connected smartphone. Yet less than 20% of online retailers optimize their websites and format them to serve these mobile consumers.

I am calling this the “mobile commerce gap”. The reason for the mobile commerce gap, this inequity between demand and supply, in my opinion, is because the internal resources required for online retailers to properly develop a mobile commerce site have been pulled in other directions, even as smartphone adoption rates have exploded. As a result, a majority of online retailers are offering their mobile customers a very poor online shopping experience. This, in turn, results in poor conversion rates and missed sales. Not to mention the fact that consumers are left with the general impression that the retail brand is not serving their needs.

Think about it. How many times do you visit a site on your smartphone and immediately leave when you see it is not optimized for mobile? According to Google, this happens 79% of the time! That’s the mobile commerce gap.

Why this Gap?

The first distraction came in 2009 when retailers and brands alike were told they must “drop everything and build an iPhone app”. While apps are great for some things, a vast array of surveys and studies have concluded that consumers much prefer a mobile site over an app for commerce. The second was the social media craze of last year, as Facebook, Twitter, and the rest dominated headlines and became “must-haves”. Both soaked up internal IT resources and distracted online retailers from building the mobile-optimized sites needed to serve their increasingly mobile customers.

So, what are the factors online retailers should consider, as they investigate offering their customers the ability to convert sales from their mobile devices via a mobile commerce site? I hope the following 5 points will clear some things up:

1) There is No “Mobile Web”

While it is true that most “standard” websites are capable of being viewed on a web-enabled phone, few consumers are willing to “pinch and zoom” their way into a converted sale on a standard site jammed into a small screen. Ever tried this? It’s not fun.

While the need for mobile-optimized sites might seem obvious, many retailers justify not investing in mobile commerce by citing low mobile-originating traffic to their current site (usually 2-5%). Of course, the fact that mobile customers seldom return to a site after such a poor user experience greets them causes this low-traffic negative feedback loop. The retailer then concludes there is no need to invest in the “mobile web”. Again, there is no “mobile web”. There is only the web, that you view on a mobile device.

2) Mobile Commerce is NOT Mobile Payments

There is a lot of “noise” right now regarding mobile payments at the point of sale when the phone is used as a “mobile wallet” to pay for coffee and the like. While mobile payments might well emerge as an issue retailers need to address, this is not the same as mobile commerce. Mobile payments involve banks, credit cards, investments in point-of-sale infrastructure, coupons, NFC, loyalty cards, and a whole array of complex issues.

Mobile commerce is simply the act of ordering something online, from your mobile phone, via a mobile-optimized version of a website. Retailers should not confuse the two, or delay the launch of a mobile commerce site while trying to understand mobile payment options and what uniform technology may or may not emerge victorious.

3) Mobile Commerce “Actualizes” Mobile Marketing

Remember, every time a consumer clicks on a marketing or advertising link to your website on their mobile phone, they should land on a site that is optimized for the device they are accessing that message on. Whether a tweet, a Facebook post, a banner ad, a QR code, an SMS message, or an email. The mobile consumer who acts upon the message should be able to convert that action easily into a sale, via a mobile commerce site. If you are a retailer and do not have a mobile commerce site and are spending money on social media marketing or mobile advertising? You are likely paying to promote links to a very poor customer experience.

4) Integrate, Don’t Duplicate

There are several options for creating a mobile commerce site. You could use a transcoder to “screen scrape” your standard website and shrink it to fit a mobile screen. One method is, that you could “sub-out” your mobile commerce efforts to a third party. You could do this by letting them “handle it” with their own separate and duplicative mobile store. You could also leverage and extend your current, proven, and trusted e-commerce operations into mobile via an integrated solution.
This is a superior approach, in my opinion, as it means you are avoiding duplication. You do so while also maintaining full in-house control and fueling mobile commerce from the same infrastructure you trust today for your e-commerce operations. A software-based integration approach takes a bit more effort on the front side, but the long-term benefits are significant, as this single effort if done properly, can serve as the foundation for not only mobile commerce but also Facebook commerce and commerce-enabled iPhone and Android apps, as needed.

5) Devote IT Resources, Plan For Growth

The single biggest reason I hear retailers give for not moving on mobile commerce is a lack of IT resources. Simply put, this is a poor excuse. While it may be true that IT is backed up, the measurable, tracked ROI that mobile commerce offers should elevate this to the top of the list. The ROI is extremely rapid, by even the most conservative estimates of the resulting tracked, incremental mobile commerce sales. Retailers and brands that are out ahead of the curve will be the biggest winners. As long as they plan for growth and choose the right approach.

Compelling Numbers

Still not convinced that mobile commerce is a “must have”? In recent weeks Google and other mobile marketing players have begun encouraging retailers to sit up and take notice of this gap. They can’t sell online retailers mobile marketing campaigns if they have no place for the target audience to “land” when they click through a mobile campaign ad/link.

Google and others are pointing to studies and reports that contain numbers that are hard to ignore. Here is a sampling:

$1.9 Billion: Worldwide online mobile sales in 2009.
$23.8 Billion: Expected worldwide online mobile sales in 2015.
61%: The percentage of mobile users unlikely to return to a site not optimized for mobile.
79%: The percentage of Google retailer advertisers who DO NOT have a mobile site.
78%: The percentage of consumers who prefer a mobile site over an app.
62%: The percentage of smartphone owners who have purchased physical goods via their phone in the last 6 months.
2-5%: The typical percentage of mobile traffic coming to a non-optimized retail website.
5X: The typical increase in conversion rates, upon the launch of a mobile commerce
Sources: Adobe-Mobile Shopper Insights, Google, eMarketer, Shop.org, Coda Research, Unbound Commerce.

The Time To Fix the Gap Is Now

Your customers are mobile and they are very likely trying to access your site on their smartphones right now. If they still see your “standard” e-commerce site crammed onto a small screen? You are delivering a poor customer experience and, as such, miss out on incremental mobile sales. Try it yourself!

Some experts expect mobile commerce to grow to become as much as 10-15% of online sales. Retailers should weigh the risks of launching a solution that their current operations have yet to integrate with. What might not be a problem at first could emerge as a big issue when mobile commerce makes up a significant percentage of online sales. Find the resources. Take the time, and consider building/launching a mobile site ASAP that leverages and extends current online sales operations.

You will provide consumers with a positive mobile interaction with your brand that also drives significant incremental, tracked revenue. Mobile commerce is here and the time to take advantage via a mobile commerce site is now!

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Wilson Kerr (@WLLK) is a former Tele Atlas exec and LBS consultant. He now leads Sales and Business Development for Unbound Commerce.

Contact him today to learn more. [email protected] Boston Mobile: 303-249-2083.

6 Keys For A Successful Mobile Commerce App

February 10, 2015 app, apps, ecommerce, key, Keys, m-commerce, mobile, mobile app, mobile apps, mobile commerce, mobile site

6 Keys For A Successful Mobile Commerce App

Mobile commerce is red hot and growing in importance by the day. If you are an online retailer and don’t already have a mobile strategy then you’d best get to planning! Learn about the 6 Keys for a Successful Mobile Commerce App.

While a well-designed mobile or responsive website is an important component of a mobile strategy, native apps also play an important role and excel at driving user engagement, increasing repeat visits from loyal customers, and maximizing cart conversion. For this reason, leading online retailers already have or are busy developing native mobile apps (i.e. – iPhone, iPad, and Android apps).

Following are 6 keys to success that I have accumulated here at Apptive while helping hundreds of online merchants create, deploy, and manage mobile commerce apps for their stores.

I hope you can draw on these keys to manage a successful project should you decide to make a native app part of your online store’s mobile strategy.

The 6 Keys.

Key #1: Work with a company or app developer that specializes in eCommerce.

eCommerce has unique requirements, particularly when it comes to apps and mobile. Consequently, you want to find a developer with mobile commerce UI/UX experience, mobile performance expertise, and most importantly eCommerce backend integration capabilities.

Key #2: Think about life after your app is live.

Developing your app is just half the battle. Who will update and maintain your app moving forward? When Apple releases a new version of iOS? Or when you need to make a content update? When you think up a snazzy new feature? If your developer disappears after your initial engagement, you’re stuck. Also, you don’t want to be entirely dependent on your developer – having some degree of self-management capability is ideal.

Key #3: Look for a solution that provides portability between eCommerce platforms.

You may decide to switch platforms at some point down the road. Make sure your app solution is portable between platforms. As a result, failure to do so could lead you to be faced with a roadblock in making a switch. At the very least it could leave you facing an unexpected development bill to make your app function with a new platform.

Key #4: Analytics.

You need a way to track engagement and usage built into your app from the start. You have to know how many customers download your app. Understand how customers use this new channel. Know what adjustments need to be made, etc. Just like your website, without analytics, you fly blind.

Keys #5: Include native-specific features.

Just having an app for the app’s sake will only lead to short-term gains, if any. Including native-specific features like push notifications and a native user interface will help drive user engagement. Ultimately this will improve conversion within your app.

Keys #6: Give customers an incentive to download your app.

The value of your app increases proportionately with the number of people you get to download it. You will promote your awesome new app to your existing site visitors, customers, and social media followers. These are folks who already are loyal or have familiarity with your brand. But giving them a little extra incentive to download your app, such as app-only coupons will get you more downloads and will pay dividends far into the future.

Apps in Wearable Tech

September 20, 2013 apps, mobile apps, mobile technology, wearable tech

Chris Belew discusses the role apps will play in the growing field of wearable technology.

On Mobile Devices, Dental Hygiene, and Origin Stories

September 10, 2013 apptive, mobile apps, mobile devices, mobile marketing, mobile trends

Apptive co-founder Jason Jaynes recently gave a presentation focusing on emerging mobile trends. Here is a clip that demonstrates some interesting mobile statistics as well as the Apptive origin story!