If you own any type of business, and especially if you’re a retail merchant, then you most likely already have a fully operating e-commerce website.
But know that the shift is completely towards everything that’s mobile commerce based, this especially if you’re selling goods with an online checkout component.
If you don’t have a site which is tailored for Tablet PC consumers, you’re most likely already losing customers and revenue to your competitors who are mobile optimized.
For this reason alone, you’ll continue to lose your rightful market share, so you should be considering developing a fully functioning mobile site as well.
The merchants who have chosen to optimize their sites, especially for tablets, are doing so for very good reason. Mobile optimized sites when compared to conventional desktop websites, have a few unique features which caters specifically towards tablet devices.
Everything Trending Towards Mobile Tablets
What the latest trends in mobile indicates is that smartphones are primarily used by consumers for performing quick and easy searches, such as finding a location, or for getting a phone number or a coupon.
Those who chose to use tablets are more interested in actually spending money by purchasing goods from a mobile optimized merchant site. The most likely and obvious reason being that these tablets have a much larger screen and resolution than smartphones, so they can view products in much greater detail.
• A recent survey revealed that tablet shoppers were 4X times more likely to make some type of an online purchase compared to consumers who shop on a smartphone
• The average purchase order from a tablet was around $125 per transaction, compared to $106 on a desktop, and significantly less from a smartphone
The most startling reveal was that the study showed that just 9% percent of the top 100 online retailers in North America have optimized their sites for tablet devices, while over 90% are yet to do so.
What this means is that for those 9% percent of merchants who have tablet optimized sites, they already have a firm grip of the market and are steps ahead of their competition.
Mobile Tablets And Mobile Commerce
• Although close to 60% percent of all retailers surveyed have developed a mobile site or an app for smartphones, less than 26% percent have optimized their site for tablets
• Smartphone mobile sites will usually have little dynamic content while focusing more on search or category navigation
• Browsing when using tablets are usually flawed with lots of technical glitches, such as, Flash related issues or slow loading pages
Increased Mobile Traffic
For those who went in early to create mobile optimized tablet sites, their retail numbers have grown exponentially, this since tablet shoppers have a far higher conversion rate for making purchases over smartphone shoppers. As a result, they’ve created a much more engaging shopping experience for them.
Tablet traffic for these merchants have more than doubled over the past year and the trend is only going up. What they’re doing is developing a visually rich and seamless tablet specific site making it an engaging experience from the beginning and right through to the final checkout and payment process.
These merchants have developed a consistent seamless experience which translates well across the various platforms, while also improving on the overall site usability functions for their tablet using shoppers.
These companies have done so by focusing on a mobile site which features an easier navigation process, while also taking advantage of the higher resolution capabilities of the tablets, which provides for better images and graphics.
Most Merchants Still Using Their Traditional Sites
The majority of the retailers, even the largest online e-commerce sites on the Web, are still relying on their traditional desktop sites to serve as their tablet site. What this can result in is an extremely frustrating experience for these tablet users, which they’ll quickly abandon.
The main difference being that tablets use finger tapping and screen touching to navigate around the site instead of using a mouse. Some other common issues include: some of the links just don’t work properly, and the use of flash which is popular on some desktop sites, can cause visibility issues on tablets.
Perhaps the most important issue is the “check out” process once the tablet user is attempting to buy something from a conventional website. On some sites, the process is proving to be an extremely frustrating and defective experience, giving them a valid reason to leave.
Tablet commerce is however still in its infancy, so for those sites who have already converted over to an user friendly tablet site, are ahead of the curve and leading the way. They’re already experiencing exponential growth and profit.