Born with smartphones in our hands, nowadays everything we do in our life surrounds these devices. From waking up in the morning and checking our phones (before even brushing our teeth) to navigation, communication and of course shopping.
In order to convert these mobile users into actual customers, it’s imperative that we truly understand our customers on an emotional level, identify their emotional triggers and translate that knowledge into a better product for them. This is the true formula for converting mobile visitors into customers.
Mobile isn’t the next big thing, it already is.
Just last May Google announced for the first time ever that mobile search has surpassed desktop. This is is a huge change in the way people consume content, search and buy. If that’s not big enough evidence, research by Statista shows that by 2019, mobile traffic to websites will increase by 480 percent.
Unfortunately while mobile search and traffic keeps rising, (mobiles contribute 50.3 percent of all ecommerce traffic) conversions are extremely low, to non-existing. A research by Monetate shows a whopping 240 percent gap between conversion on desktop and mobile. This may be due to the fact that four in five consumers experience problems conducting transactions on mobile devices.
Another critical reason for extremely low conversions on mobile is to do with the vast majority (83 percent) of websites that aren’t optimized for mobile at all (pinch and zoom) and the rest are responsive design websites.
Responsive design means designing a website that looks good whether it is displayed on a desktop monitor or a five-inch screen of a smartphone. The layout is fluid and allows the website to automatically adjust according to the screen of the visitor.
The main reason why developers go for responsive design is because of their overall versatility. The long term maintenance of a responsive site is easier since the code doesn’t need to be tweaked anymore to accommodate different layouts. Added to the fact that Google recently updated their algorithm to favour sites which are mobile friendly, it’s easy to see why most business owners choose responsive design.
Unfortunately, what responsive design really means is taking an entire desktop experience and cramming it into a mobile one. Forcing a desktop experience, on a mobile user. Doing this, is extremely problematic.
Research shows, that while using smartphones we also spend 57 percent of our time using other devices at the same time! We do not use smartphones the same way we use desktop. We use each device differently and each device has it’s own purpose. Assuming that people will shop the same way on both devices leads to a HUGE loss in revenue.
Understanding your mobile visitors
As Herbert Simon once said, “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention”. When we’re on our mobile phones we’re on the go and usually multitasking; everything happens in real time and we have absolutely no patience. Furthermore, 80% of mobile users still say they feel unsafe checking out on mobile.
If your site doesn’t load fast enough or requires users to scroll across multiple pages, these users will happily leave your page and skip across to your competitor. In other words, mobile users require a different user experience which allows them to find what they want on your site with minimum effort and time. Websites who have noticed this and have created a separate mobile experience have seen large increases in revenue.
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