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How M-Commerce Can Aid Your E-Commerce
Our team here at Thunderbolt Digital just love to keep up with all things digital, and are always on the look out for the latest web trends in Surrey and the rest of the UK including web design, social media, apps, SEO techniques and more. As a company who have helped design and build e-commerce site, we like to keep informed of which web design tips, tricks and trends can help enhance users and shoppers experiences. The rise of ‘omni-channel shoppers’ means that mobile sites are more important than ever and can be a key driving forced behind e-commerce and in-store purchases.
E-commerce is a rather familiar term these days, but m-commerce is something not heard of quite as often, even though it is just as important! Our web design Surrey team can’t stress this enough! So, what is m-commerce? Easy – it stands for mobile commerce, which is a very specific branch of e-commerce that puts purchasing power right in the palm of a customer’s hands.
Smartphones and mobile devices are changing the way we interact with the world, including purchasing paths; in fact, recent figures from the GfK (on behalf of Facebook IQ) have shown that 47% of all shopping journeys (and 57% for millennials!) include mobile devices in some way. We’ve already spoken before about the importance of ensuring that your site is mobile optimised, but that was more focused on browsing; the continued rise of m-commerce means that if you’re operating an e-commerce site, all transactions need to be mobile friendly, too; for example, apps can be helpful for some sites, but making downloading it mandatory for customers to be able to make a purchase can actually put them off and drive them elsewhere.
Of course, not all transactions involving mobile devices are direct purchases from online stores or apps; more savvy shoppers are using their mobile devices to check stock, read product reviews and compare prices before making final offline and in store purchases.
It seems clear then that web design needs to be focused on how to create visual impact on smaller screens in order to entice customers to checkout on mobile or make a final purchase in store – after all, many consumers still opt to buy offline for various reasons including shipping costs, being able to acquire an item immediately (instead of having to wait for delivery) or being able to physically touch the product they’re interested in.