Welcome to another edition of Miva Merchant Ecommerce News Briefs. With Halloween just a month away, and Thanksgiving and Christmas two and three months away, respectively, both online and brick-and-mortar retailers and small business owners are gearing up for the busiest shopping season of the year.
With this in mind, our ecommerce news briefs today focus on the projected surge in mobile commerce over the holiday season, the rise of tablet-based ecommerce, and how they will affect the buying behavior of consumers and the marketing and business strategies of ecommerce store owners in the coming months.
Ecommerce News Briefs 9-28-11
Mobile And Tablet Commerce Shopping Poised For Growth This Holiday Season
As we reported last week, many early predictions for the holiday shopping season focus on the projected growth of mobile commerce.
According to Mobile Commerce Daily, a recent Paypal survey found that more than 60% of online shoppers plan to make mobile purchases at home this season.
Thanksgiving Day is expected to be the day that these purchases will begin to occur since many people will be gathering with their families and won’t be in front of their computer, but will likely have their smartphone with them.
Tablets are also expected to play a more significant part in this year’s holiday shopping season, thanks in part to the recent announcement of Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet, with its exclusive, social commerce-focused Silk operating system, (will be released on November 15th) and the Apple iPad 2.
A recent study by Forrester Research and reported by the Wall Street Journal also suggests that retailers have also discovered that customers who browse ecommerce websites using tablets may be more likely to complete purchases than other online shoppers, particularly when it comes to bigger-ticket purchases.
Ecommerce conversion rate, according to the study, is approximately 3% for PC shoppers, and 4-5% for shoppers using tablets. Even though only 9% of online shoppers own tablets, their purchasing behavior is proving encouraging for retailers, particularly in the current economic climate.
So what does this mean for ecommerce retailers? First of all, if you don’t have a mobile version of your online store currently, you are (and will be) missing out on potential customers, especially in the coming months.
When it comes to reaching tablet-based ecommerce shoppers, retailers should keep the fact that the browsing experience that tablets provide for users is visually-based and focused. Make sure that the photos of your products on your site are sharp, clear, and if possible, include multiple views of each one.
Some ecommerce stores, including Jazzbooks.com (Jamey Aebersold Jazz) make their product catalogs viewable online and downloadable as PDF’s, which is another great way to appeal to not only tablet shoppers, but all ecommerce shoppers as well.
How are you preparing your ecommerce store for the holidays? Are you taking tablet and mobile shoppers into consideration when designing site pages, choosing product photos, and marketing store promotions? Leave a comment and let us know.
Miva