Is your eCommerce store mobile friendly?

Mobile continues to play an increasingly important part in eCommerce success. Mobile eCommerce (mCommerce) sales were predicted to account for 54%* of all online shopping transactions in 2021. 

Customers use their mobiles to investigate purchasing decisions before making purchases in-store or on a desktop, in addition to completing the entire buying journey on their mobile devices. 

Customers’ comfort with mobile buying is ever-increasing, and as a result, the industry cannot disregard mobile’s importance in the eCommerce market when it comes to the design and user experience of their websites. 

Mobile sites vs responsive sites 

You’ve probably seen the “m.website.com” domain before; it denotes a separate mobile website. That means the mobile version of your site is hosted on a different domain from the desktop version. Mobile websites are distinct from the desktop version of your website since they are developed exclusively for mobile devices.

Responsive sites are much more inclusive for the modern-day user. Responsive websites can detect the type of device a visitor is using and automatically alter the layout of the content displayed to fit the user’s screen size. 

Separate mobile sites can be more difficult to manage than responsive sites. Any updates to a single URL in responsive sites are made to that site rather than having to go in and update two distinct sites. Most crucially, a responsive site’s functionality and content are consistent across all versions. There will be no more debates over which features are best for desktop and which are best for mobile. The look and feel of the site will be consistent across the board. If the website is consistent for mobile users, they’ll be able to access all products and services wherever they are, which in turn makes your business completely accessible.

Tips to make your website mobile-friendly

Website speed

According to research, 53%* of customers will abandon a mobile site that takes longer than 3 seconds to load. You can do a few things to discourage the majority of those visitors from abandoning your site due to latency.

Above-the-fold components can be served while elements farther down the page are loaded in the background. This is known as lazy loading, and it’s a frequent method for hiding the true loading time.

However, when it comes to using lazy loading to hide latency, be mindful. Google warns that if you use lazy loading on your mobile site incorrectly, it may prohibit Google from crawling your content. So make sure you do your homework and get it right.*

You can also serve smaller-sized images for mobile pages. Techniques such as srcset (which defines a set of images for the browser to choose between, and what size each image is) make it possible to display larger images on desktops while serving smaller versions of the same images on mobile devices. Because you’re offering a smaller total page, you can use this to your advantage to reduce the loading time on mobile devices.

Make payment methods easy

Payments can be problematic for mobile users because large number sequences, such as those required for a credit card, are typically challenging to type. Instead, you may invite visitors to create an account on your website, where you can store their credit card information. Although be sure to offer guest checkout too so as not to deter those customers who just want to get on with the transaction as quickly as possible. 

You may also make use of mobile payment methods like PayPal, Google Wallet, or Apple Play simple for customers. Offering these options to users led to a 101% boost in conversion rates from smartphone users, according to one study.* Offering wallets not only makes the UX smoother and simpler on mobile devices, but it also increases customers’ trust in your website, an important factor in mobile commerce. 

Minimise forms and make use of address auto-complete

The more effort required to complete a form, the less likely users are to complete it. That’s why the first guideline of form design is to make it as short as possible and eliminate all non-essential fields.

An address auto-complete system can make the mobile checkout process so much quicker and easier. Instead of filling in up to 6 individual fields, the customer just begins typing their address (from any point, whether they start with the town or the street number doesn’t matter) and the type-ahead address finder makes suggestions from the first character. Once the correct address has been found, the customer just needs to select it and the entire address form will be populated with validated information.  

Optional fields

Consider whether you truly need to add optional fields in your form. Consider what data you truly require rather than what you want. In a perfect world, your form would have no optional fields. Less information required from the customer will result in a quicker experience for them and make them more likely to return.

Optimise your mobile eCommerce with address lookup

After browsing the above knowledge to optimise your mobile experience, you should consider the many benefits of an address verification or postcode lookup system. The main benefit of using a mobile device is that it’s already right in front of you, whether you’re at home or on the daily commute to work. Giving customers the ability to enter their full, correct, validated address with just a few keystrokes is the perfect finish to the convenient ease of a mobile commerce experience. It is the quick fire tool your business needs to increase conversion rates and decrease cart abandonment. And of course, another financial gain your business will receive as a result of the API is a reduction in failed deliveries as the human error of entering the incorrect address will be eliminated.