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Heading into the Holidays: Three Mobile Features That Will Set Your Site Apart

The retail industry has been buzzing with predictions regarding the impact mobile commerce will have on holiday sales this year. According to eMarketer, nearly 3 in 4 shoppers (74%) shop with their mobile devices in tow and 18-20 percent of all holiday season sales this year will occur on a mobile device. There’s no denying that mobile is a growing channel, and a properly optimized mobile experience will be the key to success for retailers this holiday season.

In order to retain customers, drive sales and prevent cart abandonment, retailers need to make sure they offer a well-optimized, informative shopping experience. It’s late in the season, but it’s not too late to make some last-minute adjustments to capitalize on those last-minute shoppers. Here are several of the most important.

Product Reviews

According to BrightLocal, 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations from family and friends. These authentic snippets of consumer-generated content are often the last push shoppers need to finalize a purchase decision. For shoppers, reviews provide important information about products and their use by people just like them. During the holiday season, reviews are especially important as these pages on e-commerce sites see a traffic spike. Last year, PowerReviews clients saw a 23% increase in visits to review pages in November and December as compared to the previous two months.

As more consumers turn to mobile devices to research products, even while they’re in-store, the availability of product reviews is more important than ever. If shoppers can’t find the information they need, they will look elsewhere.

Product reviews also enhance SEO, in turn driving long-tail organic traffic growth to your mobile site. Results from a study conducted by Google found mobile search helps 82 percent of in-store shoppers make purchase decisions. Retailers with quality site content, such as product reviews, rank higher – and stand out – in search results.

Mobile Q&A

While reviews provide a vast amount of product and experiential information, some shoppers still have more specific product questions. For mobile shoppers, who don’t have access to a sales associate, the ability to ask questions and get timely answers from verified sources – either brand experts or verified buyers – can mean the difference between a curious browser and a confident buyer.

Shoppers who submit questions via mobile are usually already engaged and a quick answer only improves the probability of purchase. As a result, there is a relatively short timeframe – a 24-hour window – that determines if that purchase is made. On the back end, Q&A technology providers must be able route questions to the right people, whether brand experts of previous buyers, to ensure prompt responses.

In addition to providing SEO value by adding keyword-rich content to product pages, Q&A systems create a virtual index of a product’s most frequently asked questions providing an extra resource for other curious shoppers. Information, and more importantly easy access to this information, is essential for mobile shopping success.

Seamless Checkout

According to Contact Solutions, half of all mobile shoppers abandon carts if a mobile site or app gives them trouble. While simple, seamless checkout seems like a no-brainer, it’s an obvious step that can be easily overlooked by retailers. Chances are your product pages are already responsive, but are your checkout pages responsive too? Make sure your checkout process is optimized for mobile, meaning fast load times and easy-to-read, properly-sized text and images. Also consider securely storing consumer payment information to allow return shoppers to make purchases in a matter of clicks.

Mobile shopping is sure to have a significant effect on holiday sales this season. In order to provide a superior experience that sets them apart, retailers need to ramp up their mobile presence with new technologies and innovative features.

Contributed by Theresa O’Neil, Senior Vice President of Marketing for PowerReviews.com


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