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Expert Advice
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For Success in e-Commerce
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Our team of e-Commerce experts outline an effective strategy for increasing and optimising your sales!
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3%, 5%, 9% 12%...30%...While the percentages vary, the consistent factor is that the percentage of sales made on mobiles is increasing for all e-tailers, and this trend is predicted to continue to increase in the next few months.
This is why this Oxatis expert advice might read like a heartfelt appeal: join the 1,300 Oxatis e-tailers and take advantage of the opportunity m-Commerce presents to grow your turnover.
Today we’re going to outline all of the keys to understanding this trend as well as tips and advice drawn from the daily experience of our successful clients!
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THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND:
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1. 23% of online sales are made on mobiles, and that number is growing
2. 60% of visitors to a site don’t recommend it if they are disappointed with their mobile experience
3. Re-think your conversion funnel for mobiles (login, reassuring elements, simplicity, etc.)
4. Your site's loading time is crucial for converting visitors
5. More than half of emails are looked at on mobiles. Make sure the emails you send display correctly on smartphones and tablets.
6. SMS marketing has an open rate of 98% and an average click through rate of 19%
7. Work on your mobile SEO: 40% of e-Commerce visits come from mobiles, and a large part of this traffic comes from search engines
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10 tips for harnessing the power of m-Commerce
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01
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Why you MUST use this sales channel
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"5% of our orders are made on the mobile version of our site " states Oxatis client Christine Naysmith of the site Brolliesgalore. Like other e-tailers Christine Naysmith has felt the impact of Britons’ love of smartphones and tablets directly on her turnover.
And she’s not the only one, far from it. With seven in ten Britons owning a smart phone (Deloitte) the number of people using tablets and smartphones is on the rise. Sales on mobiles and tablets made up 18% of online sales in December 2013, and nearly 6% of all retail sales (The Guardian). m-commerce currently makes up 23% of online sales in the UK, and this number is expected to continue to grow (Econsultancy). With growing screen sizes make surfing simpler and more pleasant this channel isn’t going anywhere any time soon.
As part of multichannel sales, using mobiles is an opportunity for e-tailers (reread our expert advice on multichannel sales).It’s of course important to be present on this channel, but even better to do it right. And we have some of the best tips for you, which as 60% of visitors to a site wouldn’t recommend it if they are disappointed by their mobile experience are worth taking a look at.
Mobiles also have an impact on omnichannel sales. Showrooming is a trend that concerns online and physical shops (this refers to customers who look at items in-store, try them on, ask questions etc. then buy them later online) and is reshaping the face of sales today. On the flip side of the coin some shoppers prefer webrooming (researching a product online then buying in-store).
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It’s hard when talking about m-commerce not to talk about mobile sites, responsive, apps and mobile conversion. These various solutions have different arguments to recommend them. You can build a completely separate site designed for mobiles, you can have one site that adapts to smaller screens (responsive) then there's the option of a specified app which probably provides the best user experience but involves a significant budget and is more complicated to reach customers. Luckily there are one-click solutions like Oxatis Mobile Store.
Finally don’t forget that mobiles include tablets and that smartphones aren’t the only device included in m-commerce: the conversion of visits per sales is 3 times higher on tablets than mobiles.
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02
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The right approach for success fast
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Let’s assume from now on that you’re convinced that your site MUST be accessible on mobiles (test it with your own smartphone and tell yourself that by not being accessible on mobiles you are automatically eliminating a source of traffic). You can do this just a few clicks with Oxatis Mobile Store. You might also want to customise your mobile site for different customers, your field, current offers etc.
So it’s time to start your first checklist to make sure you have the bare minimum you need. For more advanced advice don’t worry, we’ll go over that in the third section (you can skip straight to the third section if you feel you’re no longer a beginner).
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Having a mobile website is good. But you’ll have to re-think your conversion funnel and the specific characteristics of shopping on a smaller screen and on devises that aren’t (yet) quite as user-friendly as a computer. Think about these elements in particular:
>login or creating an account
> Using reassuring elements (the visitor won’t be able to see your whole home page on a smaller screen).
> The transparency and simplicity of the process has to be at its highest to avoid your visitors closing their navigations to return to their favourite mobile game or news app. Prospects on mobiles are not known for their patience…
We repeat it often, but even on a non-mobile browser your site’s speed is crucial. The speed offered by smartphone connections (including those lucky enough to be surfing on 4G) is still not as fast as fibre optic or the DSL of your router. Nothing could be more annoying (and so counter-productive for e-Commerce) than waiting for a site that won’t load. Here again keep your visitors’ lack of patience in mind.
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03
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10 pro tips for taking advantage of the power of m-Commerce
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Your mobile site is online, has an effective conversion funnel and loads as fast as the best sites out there? Great! You should see your turnover from this channel grow quickly.
But we know that you’re an ambitious e-tailer. This is why we’ve saved a little surprise for you: we’ve examined our 1,300 mobile e-Commerce websites that are doing things right…and here are the secrets to their success:
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- Understand that buying behaviour on mobiles is different.
Before being a sales tool, mobiles are first and foremost a way for internet users to look for information, compare prices and products, sometimes together, before making a purchase. This means less conversion for mobile visitors to your site. Mobiles also allow you to address specific audiences such as young people or young professionals.
- Analyse your visitors’ behaviour better with RF
- Track your metrics for use and transformation.
You probably know what we’re talking about by now (as we might have mentioned it before…). But once again, it’s absolutely essential that you follow your mobile statistics to be able to interpret and modify your marketing strategies to boost your turnover.
- Think about your emails for mobiles.
In 2013 the number of people who checked their email on mobiles surpassed those on non-mobile devices. More than half of emails are opened on mobiles. Unfortunately not all of these emails always display correctly on a small screen. Don’t waste your email marketing efforts and always plan ahead and make sure the emails you’re sending will work on smartphones and tablets. Mobile optimisation allowed the site Mygooddeal.com, an Oxatis client, to make 35% of their turnover through this channel with a spike of 68% after an email campaign that was especially opened on smartphones.
- Long live SMS
Mobiles mean…SMS! Even if this method of communication is a little dinosaur (it even works on non-smart phones) it remains extremely effective and emails haven’t been able to beat its open rate yet. SMS marketing has an open-rate of 98% and an average click-through of 19%...compared to 4.2% for email marketing. No surprise then that coupons and discounts sent by SMS are eight times more effective than by email.
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- Use social networks as these are used a lot on mobiles
68% of Facebook users are on mobiles, and Twitter very easily adapts to a text message style easy to use on a small keyboard. Take advantage of the opportunity to share products and good deals on your visitors’ networks. But also think about your messages on social networks as they are used on mobiles.
- Offer a phone contact
We tend to forget, but even though we spend so much time surfing on our phones today we can still use them to call! And talking to someone and getting advice can be one of the best ways to reassure a customer. Feature a phone number prominently on your site to encourage customers to confirm their purchases.
- Understand SEO for mobiles
If 40% of visits to e-Commerce sites today are made on mobiles, a large part of this traffic comes from search engines, which means we can start to talk about mobile SEO – an up-and-coming trend that you’ll soon be hearing more about. Having a mobile site, using geolocalisation, being present on Google Shopping, price comparison sites and marketplaces…there are numerous ways to work on your mobile SEO, which could help you gain a lot of traffic in just a few months
- Why not reread our Expert Advice on SEO?
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- Use your CRM to better understand your customers
Gather the necessary information from your CRM. This will help you determine which of your customers respond well to text messages or use mobiles and adapt your offers or direct them to a certain type of product.
- Use even more videos and images!
Mobile and tablet users have a strong appetite for media: images, videos etc. and smartphones and tablets make going from photo to photo easy and user-friendly.
- Simplify
This is just a reminder, but is important: simplify your webpages and checkout process for mobiles. This is essential for making your mobile users’ lives easier.
Now it’s your turn!
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