In the world of eCommerce, the importance of optimizing for mobile end users cannot be overstated. If you’re not optimizing your mobile end user experience, you’re potentially leaving a huge amount of money on the table. Making sure that you’re creating the best possible environment for all types of people to browse, review and purchase projects is something that you can do by keeping a few key things in mind.

What to Consider for Mobile End User Optimization

Behavior Patterns

One of the main reasons that mobile end-user optimization is so important is because of the ways in which consumer behavior is rapidly changing. People are no longer waiting patiently until they get home from work or school to do their online shopping on a desktop or laptop computer. They’re buying in bigger quantities throughout the day during their commute, during the lunch break, while in line at the bank, and more. This is all possible thanks to smartphones and other mobile devices like tablets which are becoming more and more popular every day.

To put this into perspective, studies have shown that mobile traffic to various websites is up 125% since 2012 alone.¹  Even “old school” industries like financial services and real estate have seen growth in mobile adoption on the order of 15-16x — second and third only to the software and tech industry in growth.¹

Navigation Issues

The simple act of adapting an online application for mobile isn’t enough to guarantee success in the world of eCommerce. You must keep in mind the different types of devices that a person may be browsing your site on. If you optimize for the iOS experience but Android users have a hard time navigating your site, they will likely go someplace easier to find what they’re looking for. Likewise, if you’ve optimized for the most common smartphone screen sizes but haven’t adequately assessed the experience on devices ranging from the iPhone 6+ or Samsung Galaxy Note, all the way up to large-scale tablets like the Surface — you’ll risk alienating a sizable portion of your traffic. If users are having a difficult time using your app for any reason, they will find somewhere else to do their shopping – end of story.

Ease of Use

One of the best ways to optimize the mobile end-user experience is to make sure that all buttons are large enough to be selected using a person’s finger on a touch-screen device. You’ll also want to have a “Product Search” option so that users can skip right to what they’re looking for and avoid wading through pages and pages of items that they’re not interested in. Providing a clear channel for purchase is integral to the mobile end-user experience.

If you’re looking to achieve the eCommerce revenue results that you’ve been after, mobile end-user optimization is one of the best and most efficient ways to accomplish just that. By making just a few key adjustments to your existing deployment, you can create an environment that increases the ease at which people are able to shop on their own terms. These days, “their own terms” is most commonly from a device small enough to fit into the palm of their hand.

Key Takeaways:

• Optimizing for the mobile end-user experience is a must in the modern technological environment.
• People are shopping online over 100 times more than they were even in 2012.
• You need to optimize for many different platforms simultaneously to get the best possible results.

Ready to get to work on optimizing your application for mobile? We’d recommend taking advantage of our free 5-day mobile optimization course. Each lesson is crafted by an optimization expert at Yottaa.

Sources:

1. Lee, Jessica. "Mobile Traffic Up 125% but Conversions Lag Behind Desktop [Study]." Search Engine Watch. Incisive Interactive Marketing LLC., 15 August 2013. Web. 18 November 2014. <https://searchenginewatch.com/article/2289300/Mobile-Traffic-Up-125-but-Conversions-Lag-Behind-Desktop-Study>.

2. "ProFlowers Boosts Conversions on Mobile by 20% to 30% with Mobile-Optimized Site." Think with Google. Google, September 2012. Web. 18 November 2014. <https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/case-studies/proflowers.html>.

3. Heslop, Kathy. "Why are conversion rates on mobile devices so poor?." The Drum. Camyx Group Ltd., 11 July 2014. Web. 18 November 2014. <https://www.thedrum.com/opinion/2014/07/11/why-are-conversion-rates-mobile-devices-so-poor>.