2013 will be “The Year of the Tablet”

If 2012 was “The Year of Mobile,” then we are likely to look back on 2013 as “The Year of the Tablet.” Everything for the past ten years has been about mobile. Now, we all need to wrap our minds around this contender: the tablet.  According to Marketing Land, the tablet is no longer a novelty gadget, and it is now in the realm or mainstream computing devices.

The first iPad was introduced in Q1 of 2010, and the graph above (using Apple sales data) shows how the adoption of the iPad has been much quicker than the iPod or the iPhone.  Apple sold 24 million iPads in the forth quarter of 2012 alone.  Tablets were the most desired electronics gift item this holiday season, for both kids and adults.  According to Nielsen Wire, Amazon’s Kindle Fire and Samsung Galaxy were also quite sought after among teens and adults.  These statistics just reinforce the notion that the tablet market is one to watch and stay on top of in this coming year.

Making your website tablet-ready this year should be one of your top priorities.  More and more people are replacing their laptops and desktop computers with tablets or simply using both to access the internet.  So, what does this mean for you and your company?  It means that you should take a look at your website to see how user friendly it is when navigating through it on a tablet.  Don’t worry, there a view guidelines which can help ensure your website functions well on both computers and tablets.  If you haven’t optimized your website to be tablet-ready, then now might be the time to do it. 

The benefit of optimizing your website for tablets is that your customers will be able to navigate through your website easily and be able to find the products they are looking for.  Get a head start on optimizing your website for tablets this year, and stay ahead of your competition.  If your competitors haven’t updated their website to be tablet-ready, then you can move ahead of them with your target audience or possibly further the gap if you are already ahead. Adobe released a study showing that the number of purchases from tablets is continuing to skyrocket.  Obviously, customers won’t be buying from your website on a tablet if they cannot navigate through the chechout process.

Here are a few points to consider when testing if your website is tablet optimized:

• Are links and buttons spaced well so that they are easy to tap?

• Are buttons and elements large enough to tap with your finger?

• Is your website heavily dependent on Flash content?  If so, you may be hindering customers trying to shop via their iPads.

• Are there too many elements on any given page?  If so, loading times could become an issue.

• What size is your font?  Is it readable on smaller screens?

• Are pop-ups or promos easily closeable?

• How do your fonts and background colors look on a tablet?

• Tap through everything: navigation elements, play your videos, view your images, go through the shopping cart check out process and actually purchase something.

It is important to not treat tablets as another type of PC.  With tablets exponentially growing, your business needs to be tablet-optimized.  Making your website tablet ready doesn’t have to be difficult.  For those of you looking for assistance on this, Miva Merchant has a whole team of professional web developers that can optimize your website for tablets easily and without any hassle to you.  Get ahead of your competition, and make sure that your customers can easily purchase from your website.  With tablets on the rise, it is vital for your business to take this step.

Photo credit: newbizblog