Since the rise of smartphones and the ubiquitous availability of handheld devices and fast cellular technology, the concept of e-Commerce has evolved into Mobile Commerce.
Magento has provided support early on in its products to fully support applications on the Google Android and Apple iOS platforms. Magento also facilitates the registration process of your Magento App in the Google Play store or iTunes. And more and more entrepreneurs are inspired by the new possibility and they are working hard on bringing great value to your fingertips.
Mobile Market Share
The mobile market share will definitely overtake the aggregate number of desktop computers, however it’s difficult to gauge what the impact is going to be. It’s still a world of a different to shop on a tablet vs. a smartphone and there are a lot more smartphones than tablets. So I’m careful when seeing number such as 11 percent online order coming from mobile commerce as reported by comScore for the fourth quarter of 2012 in the U.S.
What Does Mobile Mean for You and Your Business?
When it comes to the impact of “mobile” to your website, it’s very important to look at your own metrics, and across your own industry first. Are your customers visiting your Magento store using their mobile devices?
Are they shopping using a tablet or a smartphone? Are your visitors not converting and only checking for price information? Does your competition convert better mobile because they have mobile optimized their smartphone and tablet presence? Based on the answers to these questions you should know how much ROI you can expect from a mobile presence and what medium, tablet or smartphone, you should support most.
ComScore’s analysis of Q4 2012 statistics indicates that around 12% of U.S. e-commerce purchases originated from smartphones or tablets. What’s the reason? Ease of use and novel user experience, mainly. Things have really taken off since general consumer adoption exhibited an uptick in 2011.
Web enabled mobile devices are taking over; these days it seems that everyone, man woman and child, has a phone or a tablet permanently in-hand. The folks at KissMetrics wanted to see just how the pervasiveness and ubiquity of these technological marvels is affecting business and what we can expect for the future of mobile eCommerce.
Mobile devices were the source of 20% of total web traffic in 2012.
Experts predict mobile web devices will outnumber their traditional counterparts for the first time in 2012
Black Friday 2012 vs 2011
40% increase in the number of mobile sales
190% increase in payment volume
166% increase in the number of people shopping via mobile web device.
Mobile is all the rage, and with Magento at the center of e-commerce Magento mobile optimization must be a topic that every merchant faces. There are a few key factors to consider when optimizing for mobile, no matter whether that is for tablet of smartphones.
Thanks to Baynote, Flurry, and GetElastic, we’d like to share a new infographic tracking the efficacy of retail apps for mobile. It’s important to note that consumers spent 132% more time overall using various mobile apps compared with last year’s figures—this is a growing trend, well worthy of our continued attention. Let’s take a look at some notable conclusions:
By type, time spent on mobile apps breaks down as follows:
• Social: 387%
• Media & Entertainment: 268%
• Shopping: 247%
• Productivity: 237%
• Utilities: 206%
• Travel: 198%
• Gaming: 107%
The extreme growth in the Social and Media & Entertainment categories points toward rapidly expanding possibilities both in terms of advertising and social-media-native retail extensions. And, of course, shopping apps themselves are right behind in 3rd place.
Year-over-year, retailers experienced a solid jump in time spent per shopping category, compared with general stagnation or decline across other aspects. Between 2011 and 2012:
• Retailers jumped from 15% to 27% of users’ time allotment
• Online marketplaces fell from 25% to 20%
• Purchase assistants fell from 18% to 17%
• Price comparisons remained the same at 14%
• Daily deals fell from 20% to 13%
Ultimately, the status quo is embracing design-friendly, attractive mobile apps that better appeal to users’ needs and sensibilities. Still, we must remember that mobile technology as a field is still barely out of its infancy. Further efforts must be made to convert mobile users to retailers’ apps from third-party platforms.
Galaxy S3, iPad Mini, Nexus 7, Microsoft Surface – with the never-ending parade of new mobile devices hitting the market, what’s a marketer to do to engage with their audience on devices with varying screen sizes and capabilities?
The answer is simple: Responsive Design. Here is a look at what marketers need to know about this approach to web and mobile design.
Consumers use a variety of devices to reach different goals.90% of people use multiple screens sequentially.
Most popular cross-device activities
81% Browsing the Internet
67% Shopping Online
46% Managing Finances
43% Planning a Trip
What is Responsive Design?
Responsive design is a ‘write once, run every-where’ style of designing websites. Rather than building separate sites for each web and mobile device, responsive design uses CSS3 media queries to create a single website that intelligently adjusts its layout and features based on how it’s being viewed.
Key Benefits
Content Focused – Device specific elements become secondary
Cross Platform – Responds to audience device and consumption habits
Cost Effective – Less need for standalone sites and apps
SEO Friendly – Links are cleaner and used across platforms
Future Proof – Design that is fluid to adapt to new technology
Success Cases
Publishers, arguably the kings of content, are already on the responsive design bandwagon:
BBC – “We believe Responsive Design is one of the most innovative and largest scale uses of a new approach to creating Web applications. It enables us to deliver a better BBC News experience.” – Chris Russel Head of Product, BBC News Online
The Boston Globe – “We couldn’t have just built a smartphone version, but that wouldn’t have helped us with the rise of tablets. There are so many different screen sizes proliferating now that we wanted to make sure we didn’t miss out on future opportunities.” – Jeff Mriarty, VP of Digital Products
The Guardian – “A key focus of the new site is that it offers best in class performance, taking into account a user’s connection speed and adapting accordingly. We want to ensure our readers have the best possible experience.” – Tanya Cordrey, Chief Digital Officer
How do developers feel about the latest web standard?
There has been much talk about HTML%. From tech blogs to thought leaders, the new Web standard is inspiring debate and further proving that the internet has changed a lot since the late ‘90s. A 2012 Kendo UI survey, “HTML 5 Adoption Fact or Fiction: Developers Wade Through the Hype”, asked developers – those who are working directly with and are closest to all new software developments – what they thought about it. Here’s how they weighed in.
Quick Primer: New and useful HTML5 features
Web Workers – Especially useful for Web apps that use heavy scripts, Web workers use multiple and separate background threads for complex processing such as mathematical calculations and network requests. It does not affect the performance of a webpage.
Local Storage – Websites can store more information locally on the visitor’s computer via scripting, usually using JavaScript. Although it works similar to cookies, this feature is more robust and designed for more information.
Video – Videos can be embedded without third-party plug-ins or codec (e.g. Apple QuickTime or Adobe Flash)
Canvas – Rendering 2D graphics can be done on the fly, without needing a plug-in.
Form Controls – New Web form inputs are now available – from placeholder text to email fields.
Market Growth
According to a Forrester report: Nearly 75% of North American Internet users are running on browsers that are mostly HTML5 compatible. That is nearly 32% growth from the same time last year.
Adopt in or out
Most developers are getting in while it’s hot and are already actively developing with HTML5.
6% don’t plan to use HTML5 next year
31% plan to start using HTML5
63% actively developing with HTML5
What’s the appeal?
Most developers cite the familiarity of languages and cross-platform support to be the main draws of working in HTML5.
Familiarity of languages (HTML, JavaScript, CSS) – 72%
Reach/cross-platform support – 62%
Performance – 34%
Availability of tools/libraries – 28%
Productivity – 27%
Based on open standards – 24%
Cost of development – 20%
Community – 9%
Other – 1%
What about browser fragmentation?
Currently, the feature support varies across all browsers for HTML5. Safari may support some features, while Google Chrome doesn’t. Most developers acknowledge that browser fragmentation as a valid concern.
How concerned are you about browser fragmentation?
Not concerned – 5%
Mild to moderately concerned – 10%
Highly concerned – 14%
Concerned – 71%
Predicting HTML5’s impact
82% of surveyed developers believe that HTML5 will be important to their jobs within the next year, and more than half of those believe it will be important immediately. Even developers reporting that they won’t use HTML5 this year acknowledge its importance within the next 12 to 24 months.
When do you think HTML5 will be important for your job?
By 2014, comScore predicts that web traffic on mobile devices will exceed traffic from laptop and desktop computers, and with it screen size diversity will increase drastically. At Mobify, we’re already seeing an explosion in the variety of devices accessing our customers’ websites. We analyzed the 2012 activity of 200 million shoppers on e0commerce websites powered by Mobify Cloud. What we discovered should help web designers and developers stop chasing their tails.
Global Top Ten Screen Size Diversity & Popularity
320 x 480 (many smartphones including iPhone) – 11.4%
768 x 1024(iPads and 10 inch netbooks – horizontal) – 7.3%
1024 x 768 – 7.8%
1280 x 800 (common 12 inch netbook resolution) – 19.5%
1280 x 1024 – 6.5%
1366 x 768 – 13.5%
1440 x 900 (common in larger laptops) – 7.3%
1600 x 900 – 3.8%
1680 x 1050 – 5.1%
1920 x 1080 (common for HD displays, also known as 1080p) – 6.1%
The wizards over at KISSmetrics put together a fantastic infographic on the state of mobile commerce. Let’s dive into some statistics and see what conclusions can be drawn!
Mobile Commerce Highlights
The lion’s share of U.S. web traffic (80%) originates from desktops, with 85% of that traffic belonging to Windows users. Of the remaining 20%, however, Apple dominates with 95% of tablet traffic and 72% of phone traffic.
While the use of web-enabled devices is generally trending upward, it appears as if 2013 will be the Year of Mobile with an estimated 1.82 billion units globally (vs. 1.78 billion desktops).
Still a ways to go: the threshold for site abandonment by impatient consumers caps at five seconds on mobile devices compared to three seconds on desktops.
Consumers need some time before they’re comfortable enough to make a purchase: 44% of eventual buyers won’t make a purchase until 10 or more mobile sessions have elapsed.
March 11, 2011 was the date Apple released its follow up to the hyper-popular iPad. Here’s a little story about HARA Partners’ Richu Leong who bought his iPad 2:
T H E A P P L E I P A D 2
Richu is a tech at heart and over the years, he has steadily moved from Blackberrys and PCs to iPhones and now the iPad (but he still works on a PC – which is acceptable as he is a hard-core programmer). And on March 11, 2011, Richu and Sam bought the new iPad 2 ‘online’! Well actually, they waited on a line for hours, through snow storms, flying locusts, and annoying mimes in imaginary boxes asking for real money.
The wait was worth it
We like the iPad Granny Smith Apple green case!Proud owner of an iPad 2 complete with wire AND charger!And then this guy came along…Sigh…
OK, moral of the story is… Don’t balance iPads on top of your head and as soon as you get your Granny Smith Apple green cover… PUT IT ON!
