Mobile’s the best thing since sliced bread, the wheel and democracy! So the conventional wisdom goes. When one realises that the 40 million mobile user milestone is fast approaching in South Africa, we at InTarget couldn’t agree more. However, why is it then that mobile conversion rates in E-commerce are so low? Some sources have the average rate at which online shoppers eventually actually purchase via their mobile devices at just over half a percent.
While it is obvious that the mobile form factor has inherent disadvantages related to size that are not going to go away any time soon, the fact remains that consumers are leaving desktop in droves. So it seems to us that the onus is on the mobile marketer to identify any roadblocks that exist in mobile E-commerce and overcome them with a view to boosting conversion rates.
Let’s be mobile optimists and plough on with some practical things we can do with regards to the above.
Desktop users have greater freedom to switch between various websites. It’s just way easier on desktop to play around with tabs. Recognising that online buyers tend to check multiple product reviews across different pages before making a purchase, this is a potential issue that needs definite attention from the mobile marketer. We need to impress upon clients that they need to make it a lot easier for mobile users to check product reviews on the brand’s E-commerce platform. Don’t shy away from reviews, encourage them, and don’t let potential buyers exit your platform to read product reviews – they need to stay on the page!
Typing in crucial information like credit card details and shipping information can be a painful experience for mobile users. With the right web developer talent, this is so easy to fix. Call in the geeks and tell them to implement features like preloaded saved text if you have a high proportion of returning customers. Also don’t have too many fields – why have a FIRST NAME and a SURNAME field when you could simply have a NAME field?
You might also want to offer alternative – simpler – payment options like PayPal which don’t require so much information to be typed in by the mobile user. Finally, because mobile screen space is so limited, you may want to have separate sections where you display security certificate symbols for clients to create trust. At the end of the day, there’s so much you can do to boost online shopping by mobile users and the first, best step is a briefing session with the web team.
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