mobile commerce gap

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

April 6, 2015 , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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.

Fixing the Gap creates Growth
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.

Fix the Mobile Commerce Gap

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!

Fix The Gap Now

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.

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The 6 Keys

6 Keys For A Successful Mobile Commerce App

February 10, 2015 , , , , , , , , , ,

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.

The Sooner You Know Tablet Commerce, The Better

July 30, 2014 , , , ,

Tablets, once thought to be mere entertainment consumption devices, are taking the mobile commerce world by storm. Even as tablet sales themselves have started to slow down, mobile commerce conducted through tablets is ramping up big time. You need to familiarize yourself with the way tablet based ecommerce has been trending or you are in danger of being caught without a key sales platform!

Tablets Are Everywhere

The first compelling bit of information you should know: tablets are all over the place. In the U.S., nearly 30% of homes own a tablet of some kind. That’s 81 million people that actually own the tablet, and many more that actually use them regularly (think tablets shared amongst family members). Worldwide, tablet sales ownership is expected to increase five-fold by 2017. In short, more people are using tablets in their daily lives than ever before, and that trend is expected to continue into the foreseeable future.

Customers Will Judge You Based on Their Tablets

Here’s a stat that could potentially be frightening for ecommerce merchants who haven’t put much thought into tablet strategy: 77% of tablet owners report that a sub-optimal tablet experience will affect their willingness to buy from an ecommerce site. If you are partnered with an ecommerce platform like Shopify or Bigcommerce then you have the option to switch on mobile-optimized stores, but even then if you do not have a tablet-friendly design then your website can be a liability.

People Use Tablets For All Facets Of Online Shopping

Right up front, you should know that 31% of tablet owners will use their device for purchases in 2014. That means, if you don’t have a tablet-optimized presence, then you will miss out on over 25 million potential customers. But actually buying from a tablet is not the only shopping behavior device owners engage in. These behaviors are many and varied, but consider that 66% use tablets to research purchases before buying on a desktop, 63% use tablets to check prices, and 54% use them to read ratings and reviews. The implications of not focusing on a tablet-based audience add up very, very quickly.

But Here’s The Good News!

All of these powerful stats that punish those individuals who haven’t upped their tablet game offer major rewards for businesses that have! You can immediately capture the value of tablet commerce by offering a tablet-optimized website and mobile app. That pairing will provide the optimum benefit for both new and returning customers, keep them happy and making you profitable!

Special thanks to Usablenet and Get Elastic for sharing this fantastic infographic that contained many of the stats used in this post!

Three Mobile Hotspots That Could Spawn The Next $100 Billion Company

July 10, 2014 , , , , ,

SONY DSC

Industry analysts believe that the next $100 billion dollar business will be mobile. Already, many of the largest businesses in the technology world have a mobile component and more are being added every day. But amidst this incredible diversity of fields that can benefit from a mobile offering, where will the true titan of mobile emerge? Here are three hotspots that we believe could easily produce the next major business in the mobile field.

Messaging

With Facebook spending $19 billion on Whatsapp, there is no question that mobile messaging has taken off. The big question for mobile messaging, then, is monetization. Whatsapp pledges to never show ads to its users, and charges $0.99/year. Likewise, Facebook has assured Whatsapp that they will not have to compromise their principles.

This presents an interesting problem for mobile messaging companies with ethics similar to Whatsapp. The first to solve it in a financially viable way will likely be the winner, and could definitely be the first massive mobile company.

Commerce

Shopping is transitioning towards m-commerce with new apps that beautifully showcase products. While massive e-commerce sites like Amazon may have a reasonable foothold on the mobile commerce space, there is still a lot of uncertainty in their mobile offerings.

One of the problems with the modern shopping experience is the massive catalogs of products available to consumers. Smaller e-commerce sites can target individuals to a greater degree and offer a more commoditized product than the big guys. Mobile commerce companies have access to more options than their desktop counterparts, such as better location data and the ability to use push notifications.

Purchasing

Mobile commerce isn’t just about the nice shopping apps that are prominent in the App Store, it is also about making payment more seamless, and the startup that can really get the payment system down will be on top.

With iOS 8, Apple is allowing third party developers to begin using the fingerprint sensor found on the iPhone 5S and newer devices. Some mobile commerce startups will be able to use this functionality to make purchases even simpler, all you need is one finger. This functionality could even be used to have multiple payment methods on one device; one for each member of the family depending on the fingerprint.

Mobile is huge, but even though we’re starting to see some front runners emerge, the kings of mobile have yet to be crowned. It is entirely possible that nobody has even heard of the new billion dollar companies yet. The possibilities are endless.

 

Justin Profile PictureThis post was guest authored by Justin Fowler. Justin is a student at the University of Texas at Austin and the co-founder of Audio Press. You can find him on Twitter and on his blog.

Who Are The Mobile Addicts?

June 25, 2014 , , , ,

 

If you’ve been following the Apptive blog or any of our social channels, then you have probably noticed a major trend: people are absolutely addicted to their mobile devices. There have been numerous reports around what people are doing on their phones (hint – mobile commerce is a biggie), but who are these people? Flurry recently put out a report on these “mobile addicts,” defining an addict as, “a consumer that launches apps more than 60 times per day.” While some of their findings were intuitive, others were very surprising!

Right off the bat, we can determine that there are two major age ranges for mobile addicts. First, we see individuals categorized as addicts making up 49% of the age range 18-24. No major shock there. However, the next largest category of mobile addicts? Age range 35-54, with addicts making up 40% of that population! This number becomes even more interesting when you consider this: middle aged (35-54) individuals only make up 20% of the overall mobile population, but they make up over 28% of mobile addicts.

These numbers are surprising in a general sense, but what do they mean from a personality perspective? Is there currently a particularly large number of tech enthusiasts making up the gamut of these age ranges? The answer is…not really. In fact, two of the top personas for male and females were Moms (on the female side) and Parenting and Education (on the male side). Not to say that parents can’t also be tech enthusiasts (in fact, they probably are given their new addiction to mobile), but that is not their primary personality trait as identified by their research.

Flurry offers a final point on the middle-aged parenting subsection that begs discussion. Many of them may very well be sharing devices around the family, meaning that they could be over-represented as addicts when in reality the per-person app rate would not place them in that category.

That being said, it seems that overall when we look at mobile addicts it is most likely to be young adults or, failing that, their parents!

The Mobile Point of Sale

January 21, 2014 , , , , , , ,

register

In the last few years, the lines of traditional commerce have increasingly become more blurred. The rise of first ecommerce, and now mcommerce, have created a unique environment that allows shoppers to browse and buy products everywhere. However, mobile strategies are not limited to digital only sales offerings. Increasingly, we are seeing more hybrid solutions, such as physical retail stores that also have websites to capture shoppers both in person and online. One of the more interesting trends in recent times is the emergence of the mobile POS, or point of sale.

This trend was first embodied by the Square Reader, a small square shaped credit card reader that you could connect to your smartphone and, through its accompanying app, take credit cards without a standalone credit card machine. The implications of this device were huge. Anyone who previously relied on cash, such as local artisans or convention exhibitors without reliable access to power sources, were now freed to take credit cards. Because many people no longer  carry cash at all, this meant that they could finally accept payments from significant portion of their customer base that they were forced to neglect before.

It didn’t take long for others to take notice, and other card readers were introduced, including a dedicated PayPal card reader and one from established business software provider Intuit. With established names such as these, and with the growing recognition and success of Square, businesses began turning to these systems rather than traditional credit card machines due to the incredibly low adoption cost and flexibility that they offered. As they became more established so too did the offerings, culminating in such products as the Square Stand Register, a stand that accepts a tablet and allows for the easy display and entry of products, fully replacing a comparably clunky computer and standalone reader setup.

Now, ecommerce has entered the arena. Shopify recently introduced their own card reader, made in response to an increasingly large number of customers on that platform who have decided to branch their ecommerce presence into a physical one. The beauty is, this iteration of physical presence does not need to be brick and mortar. It is now possible for an individual to represent his or her products anywhere while simultaneously having the full catalogue on standby. For individual store owners, there is no longer a distinction between where you can and cannot sell products.

2013 Year in Review: Five Key Mobile Mentality Posts

January 7, 2014 , , , , , , , ,

calendar

2013 was a year of incredible growth, not just for Apptive, but for the mobile ecosystem as a whole. 2014 is set to continue the trend as advanced mobile strategy sets the divide for ecommerce merchants worldwide.

In order to make sure you get 2014 kicked off on the right foot, we curated some of the most useful posts from the Apptive blog up to this point. Check these out to get caught up on mobile strategy for the new year!

Think Mobile, Act Local

Have a physical presence but want to engage with your users on mobile devices? This post will give you insight into a mobile customer’s mindset and strategies to effectively engage them.

Infographic: Email Marketing vs. Facebook Page vs. Mobile App

How do you market to an online audience? This infographic will give you a quick (and dare we say, attractive?) visual guide to three primary methods of digital marketing.

The Smartphone Impulse

Impulse buying has a bad rep. This blog post will show you how to trigger impulse purchases the right way in order to increase customer satisfaction as quickly as you increase your sales.

How to Match App Design to iOS7

2013 also marked the release of Apple’s most significant update of their iOS operating system. This post will help you match the style of your app to the iOS7 standard.

Infographic: M-commerce and You!

Mobile ecommerce is the most rapidly growing trend for online store owners. This infographic will give you a good idea of the current state of m-commerce and how to use it for your online store.

We appreciate all of our readers and hope that these posts have proved and will continue to prove helpful. Check back often for more insights in 2014 and beyond!

Three Freaky Mobile Mistakes You Must Avoid

October 29, 2013 , , , , , , ,

scarymobile

It’s Halloween, and things are getting a little creepy.

This year, the scares are not all related to costumed trick-or-treaters or haunted houses. We’ll tell you about the three spookiest mistakes companies make in their mobile marketing that you should definitely avoid.

 

Wildly Inappropriate Ads

Let’s say your kid is playing a harmless game on your iPad. There is a stream of ads, but who cares, the game is free right? Plus it’s a children’s game. It’s not like there’s gonna be anything too bad.

Wait, is that an ad for e-cigarettes? In the kid’s game?

We wish we could say this didn’t happen. But it did, and recently. British American Tobacco ran an ad for their e-cigarette in a kids mobile game. Fortunately they responded quickly and pulled the ad, but the fact that the ad appeared at all was no bueno. While the company claims that they are unsure how the ad ran, the lesson here is to make sure that you are targeting your ads carefully to make sure they don’t appear in front of an inappropriate audience.

 

Spam That Won’t Die

Mobile spam is becoming a big deal. Customers who haven’t opted in to messaging programs, SMS-type services being the biggest offender are frustrated when they continuously receive annoying messages without the ability to opt out. In fact, people have gotten so frustrated that they have successfully filed and won lawsuits against companies that send them spam without an opt-in. Turns out, its pretty illegal.

That being said, while safer message systems like push notification allow for opt out, you should still avoid spamming customers all the time. After all, you want customers to have the ability to opt out. You don’t want them to feel the need to use it!

 

Horrible Value Props

So you’ve got a mobile app? Good for you.

Now answer this: what does it do for your customers?

If you have trouble answering, or if the “value” is of a pretty dubious nature, then you should probably reevaluate your strategy. Makeup brand Lancome recently came under fire from Forbes for introducing a mobile app that provided only token benefit for customers while serving as a thinly veiled advertising medium.

Failure to provide value to customers will make them feel betrayed, and can quickly result in your app being blacklisted and abandoned.

Mobile Fanaticism

September 24, 2013 , , , ,

Mobile Fanboys

“Fanboy!”

If you’ve frequented any tech blogs within the past several years, you are likely (very) familiar with the above term. To the uninitiated, it is a derogatory remark thrown at an individual that supports or even just speaks favorably about one company. Recently, it seems that it is thrown around predominantly when discussing the relative merits of iOS vs Android operating systems, but it is a wide-ranging term.

So, “Fanboy” might be construed as a fanatic. And what is a fanatic?

Winston Churchill once said, “A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.”

After watching a massive crowd wait in the streets for days on end to get hot new devices like the latest iPhone, you might think this isn’t too far off the mark.

Certainly, a fanatic may not always be the best person to cordially debate with. But consider the business implication. When you are talking about an emergent trend that can benefit your business, in this case the mobile ecosystem in general, do you want your customers to change their mind? Do you want them to change the subject?

Consider also that widespread fandom also fosters a sense of community. By appealing to said community, you increase the virality of both your product and message.

Just something to think about the next time you see a flame-war on your favorite tech blog or news site.

Reflections on a Mobile Reservation

August 6, 2013 , , , ,

mobile reservations

I needed to book a table for a good friend’s birthday. I did a bit of preliminary research and picked up the phone. However, I did not use it to enter a telephone number. Rather, I opened up that restaurant’s app, which had a direct link to OpenTable. I made my reservation through there. Because I was the one who physically entered the details of the reservation, I knew there would be no mistakes due to human error. I even got a confirmation message so I knew that the restaurant was also on board.

After I finished this, I was struck by a thought: even though I regularly write and research on mobile topics, strategies and trends, I was somewhat bewildered by just how natural the mobile reservation process was. Just two years ago I would’ve been dialing in to the restaurant, waiting while someone checked schedules and took my information over the phone. That would have felt like the safe bet, rather than turning to an app that may or may not be proven. In two years time, my view has completely shifted.

At this point, many people expect a mobile presence from businesses of any type. While online businesses were the first to gain the most direct mobile-driven revenue, restaurants and other forms of brick-and-mortar businesses have been looped into the fold. At this point, it would feel somewhat strange to me if a business didn’t have some sort of mobile integration, even if it is simply a mobile-optimized menu shared through Yelp!. A mobile offering today is what credit card readers were years ago. It will soon seem downright bizarre if a restaurant can’t take a mobile reservation or showcase a menu easily to mobile customers.