Over the last year, mobile commerce and the rise of the m-commerce app has grown at an incredible pace. Data from BI Intelligence shows that m-commerce is growing at a significantly faster rate than traditional PC e-commerce, with annual m-commerce revenue predicted to reach $79 billion by the end of 2016.
By 2020, projections indicate that global m-commerce will account for almost $300 million each year in revenue. If you’re part of an e-commerce business that has yet to make the transition to mobile, now is a great time to do it.
Mobile commerce takes two forms. The first is m-commerce via the mobile web — product sales made through mobile web browsers. Right now, this form of m-commerce makes up the majority of sales and revenue, although things are changing rapidly.
The second form of m-commerce occurs through apps. Major brands like Amazon and Walmart are increasingly sending users not to their mobile web stores, but to their mobile applications, to purchase products from their phones and tablets.
For a small or medium-sized e-commerce business, making the jump to m-commerce can seem difficult. How should you design your mobile app? Which type of mobile checkout process is the best? How can negative factors like bounce rate and abandoned carts be reduced?
Below, we’ve listed six techniques that you can use to get customers to fall in love with your new m-commerce app from the first time they use it.
Let users favorite products on your m-commerce app
Although m-commerce usage is growing rapidly, not all customers are comfortable purchasing products from their mobile phones. Because of this, some users will use your m-commerce app to browse your store without ever checking out on mobile.
Instead, they’ll find products that they like, remember them and return to their PC to finalize the purchase. You can make this process easier by letting users favorite products after creating an account, letting them access their favorites list at a later date to checkout.
Make checking out easy
Compared to a desktop PC, checking out on mobile is a slightly clumsy process. There’s form after form to fill in, all on a small screen. There’s also a different environment to consider, since many m-commerce customers will browse your shop from public places.
This makes checking out more of a challenge than it is on a PC. The simpler your m-commerce checkout process is, the fewer prospective customers you’ll lose due to frustration and usability issues.
Add a progress bar to your m-commerce app to reduce user confusion
One of the easiest ways to reduce your abandoned cart rate and retain m-commerce app users throughout the checkout process is to add a progress bar to your app. As users move from one form to another, they’ll see how far they’ve come and how much longer until they’re finished.
Data shows that the majority of online retailers use a progress bar on mobile to reduce anxiety and increase user comfort. If your m-commerce app is beset by a high cart abandonment rate, this one change could have a significant positive effect on sales.
Use a simple, instantly familiar user interface
As an m-commerce merchant, your first goal should be to make it easy for existing customers to start buying from you via your app. This means using a simple user interface that customers will find comfortable and familiar from the first time they use your app.
As tempting as it can be to use your m-commerce app as an opportunity to redesign your store, it’s best to carry over familiar elements from your website. A similar color scheme, page layout and checkout process will help ease existing customers into the mobile shopping experience.
Put the customer in control of content
There’s a consensus among web designers that carousels, particularly those that scroll through images automatically, are not a good practice for e-commerce websites. Despite this, carousels are a common sight on many e-commerce stores, older websites in particular.
On a desktop PC, a carousel is an annoyance. On mobile, it’s a usability disaster. The majority of users will touch the first item in the carousel, limiting your ability to market a broad range of products through your m-commerce app.
Since users have limited screen real estate, it’s essential that they’re always in control of your app’s content. Instead of a carousel, focus on letting users select top-selling products and hot product categories from the moment they open your app.
Make finding products as simple as possible
Before users can buy a product from your app, they need to be able to find it. Since more users will use your internal search engine to find products than your product category links, make sure your search bar is clearly visible and easy to access from your app’s home screen.
It’s also important to have logical product categorization. If you offer a large range of products, use subcategories to break down broad product types and make it easy for users to locate the products they’re looking for in as few touches as possible.
Test your m-commerce app with MyCrowd QA
Our powerful crowdtesting platform lets you test your m-commerce app and find bugs, usability problems and performance issues before you release it to the public. Create your account now and start finding and fixing bugs in your mobile app before your users do.
