Mobile Website Features for eCommerce

Nowadays, more and more people are browsing the web not through their laptops/desktop but regularly through their mobile phones. It’s more important now than before to have a mobile website that will attract more visitors and increase your sales.

With the ever advancing mobile technology, businesses are keeping up-to-date with these new technological trends to market their business and reach more customers. So don’t fall behind technology, but embrace it as a new means to market yourself.

With consumers already expecting brands to have a mobile website, retailers are recognizing this and are developing quickly the strategies for mobile-friendly websites. In the end, you don’t want to lose a customer just because you don’t have a mobile version of your desktop website.

So with this in mind, comes the evolution of the modern mobile website. At first, it was thought of as a stripped down version of the already existing desktop website. However nowadays, mobile websites act more like their own application featuring HD images, animation, touch events, video, and location. They are smart, innovative, and effective, and with a separate feel to the desktop version website. It is totally unlike the desktop version but its own.

With these mobile phones/smartphones and tablets with fast processors, hi-resolution screens, 4G connectivity and using HTML5/CSS3/JavaScript, developers have new possibilities to creating the modern mobile website. Latest mobile eCommerce websites feature search functionalities, sign-on/login, and integrated mobile payments to increase sales conversion rates.

A key feature to successful mobile eCommerce site is an efficient search function. It is called faceted search to get the customer faster to the relevant products searched. This will help increase conversion rates. Overall, getting the consumer to the products quickly through the shopping cart and checkout translates to better sales numbers. A better and faster experience equates to a more successful shopping cart and a direct impact on sales potential.

Nowadays with the new generation of devices, the user doesn’t have to wait for pages to load with each tap to get through pages. Newer mobile sites make it a more efficient experience with expanding/collapsing menus, tap to zoom product images, quick sort and product lists that change on the spot without have to reload the page. These features are essential in reducing waiting time and keeping the customer from abandoning the cart.

Besides mobile phones, retailers are also thinking about tablet devices. Most retailers are redirecting tablet users to their desktop website version. However, a movement towards a tablet website designed for touchscreen and features that are optimized for tablets are becoming more relevant and important in marketing strategy.

Offering familiar payment services is also important. Method of payment via PayPal, Google Checkout, or Amazon Checkout can greatly enhance the checkout process and increase sales by using methods already used by consumers.

A new customizable trend in retail experience is helping the user experience in-store help to make their purchases. Many mobile sites can detect your location and detecting that you’re in a store that sells their products can enable the retailer for example giving information on the products sold in that store specifically or offering coupons and discounts so that their product will be purchased in that store location.

Mobile technology is ever changing at a quick pace, retailers and businesses must keep up with this pace to ensure more efficient marketing and sales. If you already have a mobile website, consider optimizing it for your users for a better mobile-friendly experience with the current trends. And if you don’t have a mobile website yet, it’s never too late to start one.