eCommerce Retailers that Ignore Mobile Shopping Do So at Their Own Peril

The Numbers

Last week, we examined some of the food trends that make us extremely optimistic about the sharp and continued growth of ecommerce grocery sales (especially healthy and specialty foods). Although food and beverage shoppers are flocking to internet outlets in droves, many retailers are neglecting their mobile shopping experience. Consequently, they are missing out on a significant percentage of online shoppers, and possibly even driving people away from their site altogether.

Mobile devices (smartphones and tables) phoned in almost 20% of online sales during the months of November and December this year. This accounts for $12.7 billion of the total $69 billion in eCommerce purchases made during the holiday season. Even more impressive than the total sales are estimates showing that mobile shopping sales in the last two months of 2015 grew by about 59% as compared to the same period in 2014 (comScore, 2016).

What it Means for Mobile Shopping Retailers

With so many consumers seeking to purchase goods on mobile devices, eCommerce merchants (including those specializing in food and beverages) cannot afford to alienate potential customers with a headache-inducing checkout process. Many of the concepts to consider when designing a mobile checkout process are also applicable to reducing your shopping cart abandonment rate. This is a topic we’ve previously discussed and will expand upon in future posts. Transparency- showing your fees and shipping charges upfront, providing a guest checkout option, and offering several different payment methods will create a more pleasant checkout experience- no matter what type of device your customers use to reach you.

Other concepts more specific to the mobile checkout experience include implementing a single-page checkout (and/or displaying a progress indicator that allows customers to estimate how much time checkout will take), assuring users (who may be connected through public Wi-Fi networks) that the checkout process is secure, limiting the number of fields, and implementing responsive design. For more information on creating a user-friendly mobile checkout process, check out the post below.

How to Create A Better Mobile Checkout Process

Final 2015 Desktop Online Holiday Sales Reach $56.4 Billion, Up 6 Percent vs. Year Ago