There is no denying that mobile usage has skyrocketed over the past few years. While desktop traffic has declined, mobile web traffic has increased 47%.
This shift in consumer behavior is forcing both traditional retailers and ecommerce shops to shift their strategies to accommodate customers on mobile devices.
For both online-only businesses and those that have an omnichannel approach, a strong mobile commerce strategy will help achieve overall business goals.
It’s not just ecommerce leaders who are setting the bar for mobile experiences. It's the customers themselves. No matter the industry, customers expect mobile experiences to be fast, low-friction, and intuitive, even when their journey spans multiple devices.
The power of mobile commerce
In the past, mobile shoppers would start their shopping journey with product research on their phones, but they were more likely to complete their purchase online rather than on desktop or in a store.
While this is still a common path to purchase, more and more customers come to mobile sites ready to buy. Increasingly, the path to purchase isn’t just spanning mobile and desktop, but digital, and in-store experiences. Innovations in buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS) offerings, and mobile point of sale (mPOS) systems mean that consumers are interfacing with digital experiences in new ways.
Enter mobile commerce—sometimes referred to as mcommerce—and the importance of optimizing mobile apps for the current time. These mcommerce statistics show the impact:
In the last few years, mobile accounts for approximately half of the web traffic worldwide—over 54.8% of the world.
Due to the pandemic, 88% of consumers are using mobile apps more often for food-related purchases.
Mobile technology can make for faster in-store checkout times and product discovery.
Looking to improve your mobile experience for ecommerce customers? Here are three ways:
1. Optimizing mobile apps for speed
Consumers today have exceptionally high standards for a mobile experience. Google reported that 54% percent of people say that as the load time for a brand’s mobile site increases, so does their frustration.
Speed matters, but how fast is fast enough? Ecommerce companies should aim to load their site or mobile app in 3 seconds or faster. But, don't stop there.
Shoppers who visit fast websites aren't just more likely to convert; they're more likely to browse and add additional products to their orders—indicative of a shopping experience that customers love.
Some causes of slowness are out of your control. You can't control whether a shopper is connected to a good Wi-Fi network or whether they're on the go. While considering user connection speeds might feel like an edge-case, it's best to optimize your website (and mobile) to load quickly even when network speed is less than ideal.
Leading Digital Experience Intelligence solutions such as Fullstory leverage a range of methods to avoid sending up data when nothing is changing on-screen, making the impact on idle bandwidth very small. The data requirements are low enough that application developers can enable Session Replay recordings for all users, including those on cellular networks.
Using a DXI solution only logs data if the user is interacting with the application and on-screen elements are changing, which has a minimal impact on the mobile device’s battery.
Want to take your digital experience to the next level? Let’s chat.
Request your personalized demo of the Fullstory Digital Experience Intelligence platform.
2. Creating a frictionless ecommerce experience
Any friction in your mobile experience will increase the likelihood that a user will bounce from your app. Research indicates that 25% of users will only open an app once, so reliably delivering a good digital experience for new users isn’t optional—it’s mandatory.
When it comes to user experience in mobile apps, some common causes of friction include:
Too many steps, especially during initial app setup or onboarding
Too many form fields
Too much time “spinning” or waiting
User research is one way to uncover points of friction in your app, as are funnels, which quickly identify where users are dropping off points.
Many leading Digital Experience Intelligence platforms offer a series of useful integrations with other critical pieces of your tech stack, including Jira, Trello, and Slack. When all details about the customer's session are logged in advance, problems can be resolved faster and easier.
Read how Carvana optimizes critical features using a powerful DXI solution, without sacrificing site performance.
3. Measuring cross-channel customer experiences
One out of every three clicks (33%) on an email happens on a mobile device. If you're sending promotions to customers via email, it's most likely that they'll open it on their phone, which means that their email click-throughs are likely going to be happening on mobile, too.
Hard-earned email clicks shouldn’t go to waste because of the mobile experience. The key to being able to optimize your mobile customer experience for your e-commerce business is having the power to understand it from the perspective of individual customers.
A Digital Experience Intelligence platform can help you gain a complete picture of how customers interact with your site or app, no matter the device, and eliminate uncertainty. Stop wondering and understand the mobile experience through the lens of your customer’s journey.
Mobile has been solidified as an integral piece of customers experience brands—whether on the web, in-store or on mobile apps. Fullstory sees the path to a better mobile experience with a best-in-class DXI solution.
Are you ready to meet your customers where they are on mobile?
Request a demo of the digital experience intelligence platform that is transforming mobile apps, today and start providing a better e-commerce experience.
For more detail, download our guide "DXI for Mobile Experience: Privacy, Performance, and Bandwidth."
