According to Oberlo, 72.9% of eCommerce purchases are done on mobile devices, indicating that mobile shopping is taking over. As a result, eCommerce website owners must step up and create customer-centric websites for their online store visitors.
People no longer sit at their computers or desktops to access the internet; they do it on the go, buying groceries or comparing prices at online stores. However, even at that, consumers still expect nothing short of an excellent shopping experience.
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Competing factors have paled so much from what it entails in the previous years that only customer-centric behavior remains. Businesses must realize that technological advancement is becoming more rapid, and both organizations and individuals have access to these technologies.
As a result, consumers know exactly what they want in terms of a conducive shopping environment, and they will leave the moment they feel underserved.
53% of mobile visitors will abandon a website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. In addition, there are so many options that people no longer have the patience to spend more than a few seconds on a lagging website.
This implies that in addition to businesses having a well-functioning eCommerce website, the website must be mobile-friendly. A mobile-friendly eCommerce site increases sales by ensuring customers have a positive shopping experience regardless of device.
What Is a Mobile-Friendly Website?
A mobile-friendly website functions well on mobile devices like smartphones or tablets. It responds and displays correctly on mobile devices regardless of screen size.
In eCommerce, a mobile-friendly website is an online store with a website design that makes it easy for customers to complete all the shopping steps, from product selection to payment and checkout.
Texts and images on mobile-friendly e-commerce websites are readable and visible on smaller screens. There is no need for visitors to squint or zoom to view product images and prices. This ensures that people do not overlook anything vital and can quickly locate what they require.
A mobile-friendly website ensures that your website looks good on all devices. In addition to arranging texts to fit different screen sizes, it ensures that buttons and links are large enough for users to tap with their fingers.
Do you ever wonder why some websites work perfectly on your desktop but are almost impossible to navigate on your mobile devices?
It is because they are not mobile responsive. Mobile responsive websites have an intuitive interface and are simple to navigate.
Why Should You Make Your eCommerce Site Mobile-Friendly?
Statista says only 2.3% of eCommerce website visits are converted to purchases from mobile phones, a considerable downgrade compared to the 3.8% conversion rate when people visit from their desktops.
This can only mean one thing: people continue to make purchases on their desktops because the websites that sell what they want still have a long way to go in mobile optimization.
An eCommerce site that is not mobile-friendly can devastate your business, as 59% of shoppers believe that being able to shop on mobile is vital when determining where to buy.
Whether you want to generate more sales or provide an excellent shopping experience for your customers, a mobile-friendly site is essential for your eCommerce store.
It ensures that customers do not encounter peculiar problems when shopping on their mobile phones. It also allows you to satisfy and support all your customers regardless of their screen size. Let’s look at some of the many benefits of a mobile-friendly website.
Better User Experience
Today’s mobile shoppers are extremely picky. They scrutinize every piece of your website, and even the smallest flaw might result in a negative purchasing experience that causes them to lose trust in you.
When your eCommerce site is responsive and works effectively on all devices, you can offer a good user experience for all of your customers, regardless of their device.
Reduced Costs
Before responsive eCommerce sites became popular, most businesses had to create different websites altogether for mobile devices. It was inefficient because they spent more money, and there were still some screen sizes they didn’t account for.
With a mobile-friendly site, you can create only one website that responds and adapts to different screen sizes. This saves you extra costs from creating and maintaining multiple websites.
Improved SEO Ranking
Search engines like Google ranks mobile-friendly websites higher on their Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). It allows you to get better visibility and reach your target customers faster when they search for the products you sell or services you offer.
Websites do not rank the same on desktops and mobile devices. So your website might rank high on desktops and very low on mobile devices if it is not mobile-friendly.
Higher Mobile Conversion Rate
A mobile-friendly eCommerce site provides mobile shoppers with an excellent user experience that makes them trust your brand enough to commit with their money.
When you employ a professional website designer or use effective website builder software, you create a responsive website that loads quickly. A mobile responsive website will allow you to retain your site visitors and convert them to paying customers.
Customer Retention
A mobile site improves user engagement while decreasing bounce rates. Mobile users remain longer and are more likely to return to your eCommerce site.
This allows you to build relationships with them and keep them returning for more. Customers would be more satisfied and loyal if they may shop whenever and wherever it is most convenient for them.
The benefits of having a mobile-friendly website can not be overemphasized. However, knowing if your eCommerce site is mobile-friendly can be challenging. Here are some tips to tell if your eCommerce site is indeed mobile friendly:
Signs That Your eCommerce Site Is Mobile Friendly
Simple Navigation Design
An eCommerce site is useless to mobile users if its design is too complex for them to search for and find products on it. You must set your site’s primary navigation menu in a location where customers can quickly locate it.
Your site should use text and icons to list the main categories and subcategories of products. You must also keep the list of primary products to a minimum to avoid creating clutter that might confuse your customers.
Thumb-Friendly Buttons
The buttons on a mobile-friendly eCommerce site are large enough to click on with visitors’ fingers and thumbs, no matter how big they are. Customers should not have to zoom in to make buttons bigger before clicking on them.
You must ensure that the buttons on your site are visible, well-spaced, and properly arranged to avoid your visitors clicking them accidentally or clicking the wrong buttons.
Uniform Product Pages
You know your eCommerce website is mobile-friendly when all your product pages look the same when opened on mobile devices. Images and prices of products must be well-arranged using the same measuring units on every web page.
Icons, buttons, and information that appear on multiple web pages must be placed in the same spot making it easy for your customers to find them.
Mobile-Friendly Shopping Carts
When customers visit your eCommerce site on their mobile devices, the products in their carts should be represented with well-sized photos, attributes, and prices.
Carts should be easy to find and represented with a clickable cart icon on every web page that ensures that people can check the products they have chosen even when they leave that web page.
You should also display the number of products on the shopping cart icon in the cart.
Simple Sign-Up and Checkout Forms
Forms you ask your visitors to fill must be equipped with descriptive labels that help them know the exact information you require them to serve.
You must ensure that your forms are simple and easy to fill and only ask for the necessary information. Since your users visit from their mobile devices, you should allow them to sign in with their social media accounts. This lets them skip a step and shortens the sale cycle.
Accessible Contacts and Support
A mobile-friendly eCommerce site places email and phone contact details at the top or bottom of all their mobile web pages, making it possible for customers to reach out for support at every step of their shopping journey.
People visiting your website should be able to access your contact information before registering or signing into it.
Your contact information should also be boldly written in copyable text so people can copy and save it for later use.
17 Proven Tips for Creating a Mobile-Friendly eCommerce Site
Ensure Your Web Pages Load Quickly
Slow loading web pages create a poor user experience for your customers as people do not want to wait every time they try to visit your eCommerce site.
In fact, research has shown that almost half of visitors will leave your website if it does not load in 3 seconds.
Data speed and internet connection are weaker, making sites load slower on mobile devices than on desktops. So you must ensure that your mobile web pages load fast enough to counter every circumstance.
You could use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test Tool to test your pages’ load speed on mobile devices.
Optimize Your User Experience
Your web pages must be fast and intuitive, re-arranging items and texts displayed on your web pages to suit your customers’ screen sizes.
For example, you could add a search button to your menu options to make it easier for customers that are there for specific products to find them easily.
It is also advisable to use a top navigation menu on all devices to allow customers to see your primary categories at a glance. This helps them browse the products related to what they want without having to scroll through everything endlessly.
Integrate Your Site With Social Media Platforms
Social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook generate a lot of social sales. You should integrate your eCommerce website to allow customers from social media platforms to browse through your product catalogs and make transactions at their convenience.
For instance, you can tag the products on a feed using Shoppable Posts. When your viewers click on this tag, it directs them to the product page on your website, showing them the products’ attributes and prices.
They can then choose the one they want and make payments immediately.
Make Support Easily Accessible
Customers should be able to reach out to your business for support quickly regardless of their device or what page they are on.
Sometimes people want to call in and clarify a little detail before they make a purchase. Ensure that your site has the one-tap calling feature that lets them call to ask questions or make queries without having to copy and paste your phone numbers.
Include your contact information in a location where customers can easily click and call or email you for help. In addition, integrating a help-desk software with your eCommerce site will ensure that your customers have constant access to information.
Be Responsive
A responsive eCommerce site means that the content on your web pages will look the same regardless of the device, operating system, or browser used to open it. Your website must be responsive on every device.
When your site is responsive, it detects your visitors’ screen size and browser and changes the layout accordingly.
No longer would your users have to squint or zoom in to read your texts, but your site re-arranges items and resizes texts to fit correctly on every device.
Thumb-Friendly Website
To be mobile-friendly, your site must be utterly navigable on one thumb or finger. It means that your visitors should be able to scroll, swipe, browse through catalogs and click on buttons without using a second hand.
When your buttons are too small, it makes customers have to zoom in to click on them. It could even cause misplaced clicks when they click on the wrong button. You should give your buttons a space of at least 45 pixels to avoid all clicking accidents and ensure they are big enough for all thumbs.
Optimize Your Images
Visitors should be able to see clear and quality images of your products regardless of their browser or device. You must provide high-resolution images that fit into their screens perfectly and allow them to view images without zooming in or out.
Customers also expect your images to load quickly. Providing the same pictures of a product in different sizes will ensure that they load quickly on every device.
Use Icons
An icon is said to be worth a dozen words. It helps you explain what a category or button does to your customers without explaining it in so many terms.
Use icons to replace words in places like contact information and a search button to reduce clutter and make your site more user-friendly.
You can also make your icons a clickable link that directs them to places like your social media platforms and their carts.
Use Videos
Since most internet users are likelier to watch videos on mobile devices than on desktops, it is only sensible that you put videos on your eCommerce sites.
However, you should only provide relevant videos to avoid clutter, making it difficult for consumers to find the products they need on your web pages.
For example, you could make a tutorial using video capture software to show them how to put products into their carts and make payments on your site.
Ensure that you use a video player that does not consume too high bandwidth and slow down your site.
Keep Your Design Simple
The more complicated your design is, the longer it takes to load on mobile devices. You must ensure that your website design is clean and straightforward, guiding your users with the correct information on every step of their shopping journey.
Simple designs help you emphasize your message without distracting from it. You can use graphic design software and tools like Canva to create simple designs that welcome visitors and give them a sense of your brand in seconds.
Make Content Short
Although it is pretty tempting to post a lot of content describing your products and explaining why they are the best, you must keep your content short.
People do not want to scroll through long product descriptions on their smartphones. You should only include the necessary details and use the shortest words to describe products.
Only include the most essential information for your site’s visitors, and keep it as simple and uncluttered as possible.
Add Clear Call-To-Actions (CTAs)
To create a mobile-friendly eCommerce site, your call-to-action (CTAs) must be visible and placed in places that are easily accessible.
For example, your “Add To Cart” or “Buy Now” button should be big enough and use contrasting colors. It should be in an easily-seen position, usually close to the price, that allows users to access it quickly.
You must put your CTAs in places that can be easily accessed when scrolling through mobile devices with one hand.
Keep Pop-Ups Minimal on Mobile Devices
People find it distasteful when they get hit by many pop-ups trying to navigate eCommerce sites on their mobile devices. Because smartphones have small screens, too many pop-ups hide your content and frustrate your users endlessly.
Customers do not like it when you create pop-ups that require them to act before gaining access to your web page content. If you have to use pop-ups, ensure that they are not the first thing your users see when they visit your eCommerce website.
Link Your Brand’s Logo to the HomePage
Most mobile shoppers expect to be able to go back to the home page and start over quickly. An easy way to do this is to link your home page to your logo so that users get directed there when they click on it.
It also helps your visitors, directed to subcategories from social media platforms, to go to your home page and browse through your catalogs.
Use Geolocation
Since most mobile devices enable geolocation, you should use it to detect where customers are shopping from and display products that would interest them.
You could use this feature to improve your customers’ shopping experience by displaying information to them in the language they can read.
It also helps you grow your online and offline stores by suggesting the physical stores closest to your customers when they shop online.
Offer Guest Checkout
Shoppers may show interest in purchasing your products but may not want to register on your website. Most customers will leave your eCommerce site for another if you require them to create an account before they can shop.
Mobile shoppers are lazy and do not want to be bothered with filling out forms and creating accounts. So you must eliminate unnecessary steps and have an option for users who do not wish to create accounts before they shop.
Keep Testing
You can not be sure that your eCommerce website is mobile-friendly until you have tested it on all screen sizes. So you have to keep testing it on every screen size and browser you can to ensure that it functions properly on them.
You can test it on Android, iPhones, iPads, and different-sized Tablets to ensure that it works on them and that customers have a good shopping experience when using these devices.
In Conclusion
The advancement of mobile technology, combined with user comfort with their phones, has significantly increased mobile transactions. Mobile now receives the same number of clicks as desktops and tablets.
As a result, businesses must incorporate the development of mobile-responsive websites into their online marketing strategic planning to avoid setting themselves up for failure.
A mobile-friendly website is essential for increasing sales and retaining customers on your website.
Even if you sell the best products at the best prices, most visitors will leave your eCommerce website at the first sign of a hiccup in your website’s responsiveness.
As a result, you must ensure that your site is welcoming and appealing to customers regardless of screen size or browser.