Remember once upon a time when the big shopping push centered around Black Friday? When a mother and daughter pair dragged themselves from their beds at 5am to acquire steaming cups of coffee and target their favorite stores?
Fast forward to present day, and it’s all about mobile. That mother-daughter duo slept in this year, and now they’re at home, snuggled up in their sweats by a fire, browsing on their smartphones and tablets.
A study recently completed by CFI reported that 57% of consumers use their smartphones while shopping. What do they use them for? Just about everything, including making price & brand comparisons, to check product reviews, and to receive promotional offers.
While in 2013 only 59% of consumers used their smartphones to make purchases, the last six months have seen that number jump to 70%. And according to Artisan Mobile, 91% of consumers plan to use their mobile device to make a purchase this holiday season, with Thanksgiving being the most popular mobile shopping day of the year, with 31% of all e-commerce sales coming from mobile devices (up from 21% in 2013).
So what can you do to make sure your e-commerce business is ready for this stampede of mobile consumers?
Responsive Site Design
A responsive website is one that will adapt its layout regardless of the device it’s being viewed on. Many online shoppers will go back to a site multiple times across multiple devices before completing their purchase. If their experience isn’t seamless, they’re more likely to abandon the site for a more user-friendly competitor.
Quick Site Speeds
There’s nothing that will lose a shopper’s interest faster than a slow load time. Make sure to communicate with whomever is hosting your website so that your servers are ready for the heavy traffic that the holidays will bring. You can check the amount of time your site requires for a complete load at WebPageTest.
Test Test Test
Practice makes perfect! Test drive your site many times using a variety of devices to make sure it’s up to par this holiday season.
Searching for a sophisticated, reliable, and scalable e-commerce solution? Talk to us today!
