According to Oberlo, from 2016 to 2021, nearly three out of every four dollars spent on online purchases today is done so through a mobile device.
Mobile devices already beat out desktop users for email opens, by more than 35 percentage points. And unless you have been stranded on a desert island (without Wi-Fi) for the past 6 months, you’re aware of the major shift Google has implemented to benefit mobile searchers.
No one would deny that mobile traffic is too relevant and lucrative for an audience to ignore—but does your site reflect that? Find below some of the most basic steps you can take to better capture mobile eCommerce revenue. With the holidays only a dozen weeks away, it may be time to consider making some changes to your site.
Mobile Chat and Other Anti-Abandonment Tactics
There are 4 primary tactics you can use to combat shopping cart abandonment from mobile users:
1) Mobile chat-
The first tactic for mitigating shopping cart abandonment is preventative. By engaging site visitors when they have a question or issue, you are not only more likely to shepherd the current purchase to completion, but you are also more likely to leave a positive impression of exceptional customer service with the site visitor. This means you are not only securing revenue now but you’re also positioning yourself well to secure revenue from repeat business.
Live chat vs. mobile chat is primarily a difference on the back end (technology), but there are some considerations that will impact you, and you should be aware of them. Two elements that differentiate mobile chat from basic website live chat are device tracking and design. Device tracking occurs on your staff’s end. This is useful for reporting purposes (data-driven decision-making is key!), but it is also helpful for site visitors that need to be talked to through use of your website. Your mobile site layout is significantly different from how it would appear on a desktop device.
Design is primarily relevant on the user’s/visitor’s end. The size, spacing and placement of your chat window (and user interface within the window) needs to keep the smartphone-sized and finger-activated screen of mobile users in mind (more on this under UX below).
2) Modal (pop-up) dialogues-
Pop-ups are often deployed on sites as a last line of defense to reclaim a faltering purchase or even just capture the visitor’s contact information in the hopes of attracting their business via marketing efforts at some point in the future. UX Magazine had a rather good article on this. Pop-ups can be particularly annoying to mobile visitors, so be thoughtful in your use of them.
3) Follow-up email (aka abandonment recovery email)-
This is the most common approach to attempting to reclaim lost revenue from an abandoned shopping cart. If an email address is captured during the session, a message can go out a day later (or whenever) with a discount offer. Shoppers have caught wise to this tactic, however (note the date of the article, they are aware of it these days). That having been said, ultimately if it results in them making a purchase from your online store at a price you were ready to offer them anyway, it’s not a bad tactic to employ.
4) Remarketing ads-
The final tactic involves placing cookies on your visitor’s device based on key products or pricing pages they viewed during their mobile session. Based on what they looked at, they’ll see ads through Google, Facebook, and/or other ad networks (depending on how you have set up your remarketing). This can have a creepy “big brother is watching” effect, but it can be very effective.
User Experience (UX) for Mobile Visitors
None of the above tactics will be relevant, however, if your site visitors leave immediately in disgust at how awful/ugly/slow your site is.
30% of mobile shoppers abandon the transaction if the site is not optimized for mobile. 57% will do the same if they must wait as briefly as 3 seconds for a page to load.
And as for apps – unless you are getting a great tradeoff by forcing shoppers to use them, they are to be avoided. Mobile shoppers view downloading an app to be an unnecessary barrier and therefore, will drive potential revenue away if it is the only way to do business with you.
eCommerce Content Marketing Tailored to Mobile Traffic
OK but let’s say you aren’t even struggling with any of the above problems (yet), because you’re not getting a whole lot of mobile traffic in the first place. Here is some very general info to equip you to better tailor your eCommerce content marketing for mobile users.
Demographics for mobile visitors might not be what you’d guess. Though the largest group is 18-34, one in four are over 55. Men in the 18-34 age group have expressed a strong preference (40%) for purchasing everything online if possible (33% of women in this age group said the same, and less than 30% of either 35-64 group reported this). Keep this in mind when you are coming up with your buyer personas and developing your eCommerce content marketing!
Also, keep in mind the user is viewing the product on their phone, so more concise, targeted descriptions will be an asset here. Additionally, if you can leverage local search terms for your content, you should. 78% of all local searches on mobile devices led to a direct purchase within 24 hours; 73% of these purchases were done in a physical store, 16% by phone and 11% via online.
Implementing Mobile Chat
Hopefully, this information has been helpful for accommodating mobile visitors to your online business. If you have questions about mobile chat (for instance what data you can collect from mobile visitors, or how much time you’ll need to implement it comfortably before the holiday rush), please contact the Velaro Live Chat team.
