Responsive designs

[chris ashdown]

Thought this info was interesting with our basic V11 website.

Without responsive design the site seems to work well as they are with people buying on all types of system, Desktop, Mobile & Tablet., This would seem to be confirmed by the time on site etc, obviously workwear is not a grab your mobile and quickly order something, but a more sit down and consider what you need in a office environment, so desktops will always be ahead.

With results like this I think I will wait a while to spend a lot of money getting Responsive designs

[fergusw]

Interesting point Chris, however I'd also direct you to looking at the conversion rates from your data:

Tablet: 1.8%
Mobile: 0.7%
Desktop: 2.0%

So visitor for visitor, desktop customers are more than twice as likely to buy than mobile ones.
The important point would be, with a properly responsive site how high would the conversion go i..e are your customers not buying at the same level on mobiles because the site is not responsive, or because they are not the "buying on mobile" kind of people?

Our experience shows that responsive does increase conversion rates on mobile devices across the board, however it does vary by market/customer type etc.
Your question has to be on return on investment i.e. how much of an increase in conversion rate, over a period of time, would ultimately pay for the responsive design, and more.

[Mike Hughes]

The important point would be, with a properly responsive site how high would the conversion go i..e are your customers not buying at the same level on mobiles because the site is not responsive, or because they are not the "buying on mobile" kind of people?

Or maybe because they're just browsing on their mobile or are happy to wait and buy when they're next at their desktop. I can quite see business people checking that Chris has what they want while in a meeting / talking to the guy who says they need some more workwear, etc and then ordering / tell purchasing to order once they're back at their desk.

So once of the things you need to take into account is that even if you can get the mobile conversion rate higher, you might just end up cannibalising sales from the desktop.

I'm not saying it isn't a good thing to do, just that it's not as easy as just assuming the conversion rate will be much better with a fully responsive design.

I have to throw it back at you Fergus. What kind of an uplift are you seeing on mobile sales with a fully responsive design? If you've done a few you should have some useful info to share with us.

Mike

[PeterW]

The important point would be, with a properly responsive site how high would the conversion go i..e are your customers not buying at the same level on mobiles because the site is not responsive, or because they are not the "buying on mobile" kind of people?

Is there such a thing as a properly responsive site? Everyone says that responsive is the way forward, but it still has its limitations. Text floats to the wrong areas dependant on screen size, i.e sits to the side instead of moving underneath. Images don't move into their correct positions, i.e not level. Maybe its just me, but it just doesn't always look right.

At the moment, in my opinion, responsive is a compromise and not a complete solution. No doubt the landscape will change again soon with the likes of google glass technology coming along.

[fergusw]

Is there such a thing as a properly responsive site?

Fair point about "properly". Not a very quantifiable adjective, I appreciate, however I have certainly seen several so-called mobile-designed sites that do not work well at all across multiple platforms.
Perhaps I should have changed it to be "well designed and constructed" responsive websites?

Regarding the uplift we are seeing:
I'll dig out some up to date figures, however to give you an idea of the range, using a pre-design conversion of 0.5% mobile versus 2.0% desktop, we have seen increases to 0.7% up to around 1.5% which, whilst not seeming like a lot, can equate to a significant increase in revenue for some websites.
We're on our 3rd generation responsive design framework for SellerDeck with some new sites going live with it in the next coming weeks and months. It has some significant upgrades to the checkout and product pages to improve user interface and performance for mobile, as we have developed it from mobile upwards. I'll update here as and when we get some more current data with the latest design as well. We hope to report some further improvements on mobile/tablet conversion rates as we go.

[jont]

I think there are a lot of caveats required when discussing uplift and conversion rates when comparing responsive to non-responsive even on the same site. As well as the usual changes in trading conditions (competitors going out of business, external influences such as a feature in Vogue etc) most responsive site changes also incorporate a new design or at the latest a new navigation as a minimum (it would be foolhardy not to).

With many sites being typically on a 2-3 year design change cycle feedback and monitoring with regards to usability will be built into the new design - responsive or not.

Even though it is impossible to get truly accurate figures, responsive design done correctly (as Fergus points out) will as a minimum not do any worse and should assist as part of the overall upgrade process to see increased sales.

[chris ashdown]

That's a really interesting point John, Responsive designs will not normally be a single upgrade but part of a new package of updates for most users

I know both you and Fergus have obviously spent hundreds of hours on your own versions and Sellerdeck will I imagine be forced to offer it in its basic package to keep up with competitors some time in the future, What pointers should we look out for to be able to judge which versions offers the best solution to the various displays, bearing in mind individuals only have a limited selection of displays available to themselves to check with against many operating systems and display systems available

[jont]

With Chrome and Firefox you can get extensions which resize the browser to set dimensions to replicate the most common devices (ipad, iphone, low res smartphone, laptop, desktop and the landscape / portrait version accordingly).

All the responsive code (framework) work in pretty much the same way - it works on a grid system of typically 12 columns. The concept works by saying if the window is a desktop show all 12 columns side by side - if it is a tablet show say 6 columns over 2 rows .... for smartphones show 1 column wide over 12 rows .... and any variations thereof to get the desired effect. They are typically built from mobile back to desktop so you get the correct functionality at all sizes built in as standard. Working it from desktop to mobile can be a road to ruin hence the need for new design, layouts and navigation to be introduced rather than a verbatim conversion from an existing fixed size design.

Choice of framework is largely a matter of choice for the designer and what is to be achieved for a specific client / site. Like most things it is what you actually do with the code in terms of design rather than the code itself. The responsive code is merely a framework for all the cool stuff to be built around - that can be done well or poorly.