With nearly two-thirds of internet users accessing the web via mobile phones, creating mobile-friendly web pages and apps has become a crucial part of product marketing. While traditional access still accounts for a dominant proportion of e-commerce, mobile web users often visit product pages via a smartphone or tablet prior to completing purchases through a laptop or desktop computer. The upshot of it is that, in today’s world, if you’re not mobile-friendly, you’re not consumer-friendly.
Why Go Mobile?
Aside from creating an added line of accessibility to your business or product, taking your webpage mobile enables you to interact with your consumers on a level that is unachievable through more static devices. For example, many mobile apps now enable features such as coupon-scanning, expedited checkout, and special offer notifications, helping to draw customers in while keeping your product a dynamic part of their mobile world. Mobile accessibility is also of key advantage to stores with a high volume of local through-traffic. With 50% of local searches carried out on mobile devices, enabling mobile access to your webpage can help to ensure that travellers and tourists are able to locate your store and peruse your product selection.
Becoming Mobile-Friendly
If you’re on a limited budget, then making your existing webpage mobile-compatible is more a matter of simplifying your existing content than anything else. Mobile devices have the most difficulty with web pages that are content-heavy. On a small screen, an excess of graphics and information quickly becomes overwhelming, prompting mobile visitors to navigate instead to a more user-friendly site. Another common, and easily fixed, mobile visitor deterrent is screen compatibility. Many traditional websites are set up so that mobile viewers have to zoom in and scroll around to view content. You can rectify this problem in just a few minutes by setting a mobile friendly preferred width.
If you can afford to set up an exclusive page for mobile visitors, all the better. This can be done through an independent, simplified mobile web page, or an individual app for your business or product. By creating an independent platform for mobile visitors, you can draw traffic to your product app/page by offering exclusive discounts and coupons to mobile visitors. Via your mobile app, you can notify consumers immediately of new releases, sales and special offers. In designing your mobile page or app, stick to the simplicity rule of thumb. The more clean and concise your page, the more appealing it will be to mobile viewers.
The Future of the Mobile Commerce
Mobile commerce establishes a link between conventional shopping and e-commerce, and as the mobile platform evolves, so will the mobile shopping experience. With universal mobile wallets on the horizon, mobile commerce will soon establish an unparalleled foothold in the commerce world, enabling instant, secure checkout, from anywhere. As phone screens become both 3D-enabled and more high definition than ever before, shopping through mobile devices will rapidly overtake traditional e-commerce in popularity, practicality and accessibility. To keep your business astride of this changing mobile world, mobile web integration is crucial. Take the first steps today, and watch as your business becomes a part of the future.