Customer experience and mobile e-commerce sites

I’m not exactly what you call a shopaholic but I do enjoy shopping online since it saves me a lot of time. Get in, get out, done. Viola! So the other day I was reading e-Spirit’s Content Unlocked blog and came across some statistics created by research firm Invesp that jumped out at me. According to Invesp, the top 10 U.S. online retailers by unique monthly visits are:

OK, no surprise there.

But what really caught my eye was that Invesp predicted that “mobile devices will account for 15% of the total U.S. online retail sales in 2013, which is estimated to reach 25% by 2017.” Wow! I realize that we’re living in a mobile world and that most people have smartphones or iPads or other handheld devices, but talk about multi-tasking! Now I can walk down the street, talk on my smartphone and receive an alert from one of my favorite retailers about a sale item.

The key issue to me is how can retailers duplicate the easy-to-view, easy-to-navigate style of their web sites and shift them over to very small handheld devices? For example, I subscribe to ESPN’s publications and am constantly checking for updates on their web site. However, when I’m using my smartphone I get so frustrated when I click on a specific login area and it sends me somewhere else by accident. Or when I try to expand a page with two fingers and I accidentally click on another link. It drives me nuts!

The point I’m trying to make here is that retailers know that their e-commerce sites are very easy to use on a computer, but they must make sure that they use a powerful content management system to ensure that I get the same experience (it’s all about the customer experience) regardless of whether I’m in their store, on their web site, or viewing them on my smartphone. Sounds simple but you’d be surprised how many people I’ve talked with who have had the same type of negative experiences that I have on other retailer’s sites.

What do you find most annoying when you’re trying to navigate an e-commerce site when you’re using a mobile device?

Author: Rob Goodman

Rob Goodman is a communications professional with more than 27 years of experience in public relations, marketing and content creation.