mobile optimisation for actinic sites

[seb]

As an actinic user i wondered if actinc had any plans for making sites 'optimised for mobiles' i cannot find any information on this subject in the forum, surely i cant be the only person wondering about this, i feel like i may be missing the boat when my competitors have mobile optimised content?

[Mike Hughes]

There was quite a bit of discussion recently: http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=43441

Mobile ecommerce is still a very small portion of the market so I doubt if you've missed the boat. Having said that, there's no easy way to do this at present.

Mike

[seb]

with google producing stats like this it cannot be ignored;

According to research firm International Data Corporation (IDC), the Western European mobile phone market grew 7.5% year on year to 50.7 million units in 3Q10. Shipments of smartphones increased to 19 million units, 109% higher than the previous year's third quarter, to represent 37% of total shipments. More and more users are moving to mobile devices capable of a full internet experience and so it is growing even more important than ever that mobile optimised websites be built to capture this growing market of users.

[completerookie]

take a look at your own web stats and see IF anyone is really using your site with mobiles.
you can look at the operating-system stats and also screen-size
you can then decide if its worth the effort.

kev

[Mike Hughes]

I have a smartphone and an iPod touch that I use at home.

Even on mobile optimised sites (and apps) such as ebay and amazon the experience is so poor that I can't be bothered to try and buy anything that way. It just doesn't work well. The screens are too small and the optimised pages just mean that there's virtually nothing on each page leading to lots of hunting around trying to find the info you want, often because it isn't there.

So yes, my opinion is that this is something for the future. It doesn't matter if everyone in the world has one of these if no-one is using it for shopping.

At the moment it's bleeding edge. All pain, no gain.

Mike

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

with google producing stats like this it cannot be ignored;

But those stats say absolutely nothing about the growth of mobile ecommerce.

[Steve G Griggs]

Smart phone usage

Hi all.
At the moment it's not worth it for us: our visitors using any sort of I-phone, Android, Smartphone were below 0.1% in march.
But believe it or not 18 visitors were still using IE4!

[fergusw]

But believe it or not 18 visitors were still using IE4!

Get their IP address, contact their ISP, get their home address, pay a visit and offer to install FireFox 4, Chrome, Opera or event IE8/9 - it's the least you can do!

I wonder what the web looks like in IE4 these days........


Back on topic, we have been looking at Mobile design for a couple of years now. What's interesting is the constantly changing parameters. There was a time when handheld devices, in the main, presented themselves as "handheld" and stylesheets could be server for these sites.
With "smart" devices running near-full versions of internet browsers (safari, opera mini etc) it's becoming more of a challenge to identify and then server the appropriate content.

As designers, and merchants, we are always looking for ways to be more efficient i.e. without having to design, code and build 2,3 or more versions of the same site (unless you have the resources of John Lewis), however with mobile devices and touch interfaces the user interface is key!

We deliver "screen" and "handheld" friendly CSS stylesheets for sites we build however mobile commerce is not yet at the "tipping point" for the majority of SME's and therefore they cannot justify the additional cost of delivery of multiple versions of a site.

[seb]

take a look at your own web stats and see IF anyone is really using your site with mobiles.
you can look at the operating-system stats and also screen-size
you can then decide if its worth the effort.

kev

just shy of 1000 visitors in a month using either an iphone or blackberry,so i'd say it was worth targerting these people. For me its not really about who uses a mobile now but who would if they could, as a retailer i think i'd be foolish not to make the buying experience as convenient for my customers as possible.

[seb]

But those stats say absolutely nothing about the growth of mobile ecommerce.

your right it doesnt, the stats prove the sale of these devices has rocketed so more people have them probably some people who dont have a computer at home, (i have customers in this postion) so to make my site optimised for mobiles means i can reach customers (and they can view my shop) that ordinarily i dont have.

if you'd like some stats relating to the expected growth in mcommerce how about this 'mobile commerce is expected to grow at a 58.2% rate in the US:'

from here;

http://blog.demandware.com/blog/bid/...ommerce-Growth

[seb]

I have a smartphone and an iPod touch that I use at home.

Even on mobile optimised sites (and apps) such as ebay and amazon the experience is so poor that I can't be bothered to try and buy anything that way. It just doesn't work well. The screens are too small and the optimised pages just mean that there's virtually nothing on each page leading to lots of hunting around trying to find the info you want, often because it isn't there.

So yes, my opinion is that this is something for the future. It doesn't matter if everyone in the world has one of these if no-one is using it for shopping.

At the moment it's bleeding edge. All pain, no gain.

Mike

well i have a 1000 visits to my site last month from mobiles, so i dont believe its one for the future i beleive it should be thought about now by actinic.

Just because your experience of using mobile optimised sites has not been good doesnt mean there are no good mobile optimised sites or indeed that people dont want to use them to buy online.As retailers we need to recognise these new trends and enact on them to give the end user the best and most convenient solution for them to be able to purchase the goods they need, i could list a 100 instances where the convenience of buying goods on a mobile would be useful.
and heres that stat again from emarketer.com, mobile commerce is expected to grow at at 58.2% rate in the US

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

Checking my recent stats for mobile use shows:

mobile visit accounting for 6.5% of all visits
and revenue from mobile @ 4.9% of total revenue

Although these figures include the iPad.

If I split out the Ipad the figures are:

Visits:
iPad - 1.8%
non iPad - 4.7%

Revenue
iPad - 3.1%
non iPad - 1.8%

These figures are likely to grow.

At the moment the iPad is the main source of sales for mobile ecommerce which is understandable due to the screen size, if we discount the iPad and look at Smartphones the 1.8% of revenue is still small but how much this would increase if the site was designed for mobiles I am not sure.
I am sure if will become important in the future and think Actinic should start to think about how they might be able to embrace mobile ecommerce in the future, but there is always going to be more imprtant issues to work on first.

The importance of optimsing for mobiles will be partly dependant on what you sell and who your customers are.

[seb]

you are right it depends on your customers those figures you cite suggest not many of your potential customers use a mobile which if we make the assumption that on the whole people who play golf (largely) are of the older generation makes sense. Your demogarphic is very different to mine, and its difficult to make predictions about who might order from you if they were able to with their mobiles, but im sure by making my site easier to use with a mobile it would increase sales and i'd like actinic to be thinking about this at least. Also its always good to be first, the first mobile optimised golf shop ....on your golfing holiday snap your pitching wedge, order one right away from the course and be using it next day

Mobile commerce sales are growing at breath-taking pace (82.8%) from 2010-2011.u.s

[Mike Hughes]

Mobile commerce sales are growing at breath-taking pace (82.8%) from 2010-2011.u.s

Growth figures are almost as meaningless as the number of smart phones.

There are some reasonable numbers and breakdowns here: http://creloaded-mobile.com/2011/01/...e-infographic/

It suggest 2010 mobile ecommerce is $3.4Bn and doubling every year.

But total US ecommerce sales for 2010 are about $180Bn.

http://www.businessweek.com/the_thre...mmerce_gr.html

So mobile was probably about 2% of total online sales in the US in 2010.

Mike

PS. Both the Amazon and ebay mobile apps are listed as being amongst the top 10 mobile shopping apps for 2011. They are best of breed and still not very good.

PPS. I'm not a mobile naysayer. It will be an important part of online retailing. It's just not that important now that I'm going to stress about it. I believe there are other more important things for Actinic to accomplish in the next 2 years.

[seb]

Growth figures are almost as meaningless as the number of smart phones.

i dont follow your argument here, this is actual growth so how is it meaningless?