For the past decade, e-commerce retailers have been teased with the annual headline “20xx Is the Year of Mobile Commerce.” After years and years of promises unfulfilled, mobile commerce is finally retail’s reality. eMarketer reported that global mobile commerce sales rose 40.3 % in 2017 to USD 1357 trillion, representing 6 % of total retail sales. By 2021, eMarketer projects that mobile commerce will account for 72.9 % of the e-commerce market.

What’s Fueled This Growth?

Growth has been helped along by consumers feeling more comfortable making purchases on their smartphones and, in some regions, a greater selection of low-cost items like apparel, which encourages impulse buying. Voice shopping has made it simple for even technophobes to find products or place an online order. With Google recently reporting that 20 % of mobile searches are triggered by voice, there is clearly a movement in that direction. Also, in emerging markets such as India, Malaysia, Nigeria, South Africa, and Taiwan, desktop computers never achieved the same levels of market penetration, so consumers there use mobile devices as their primary internet connections.

Are You Mobile-Ready?

With mobile commerce on the rise globally, it is necessary that your website is ready for mobile shopping. For example. while smartphone penetration is high in Brazil, Worldpay reports that lack of mobile optimization of shopping websites is cited in the top three reasons for not shopping online via a mobile.

Decreasing your site’s load speed matters for attracting, acquiring, and keeping mobile e-commerce customers. Mobile app developer Skilled notes that 64 % of smartphone users expect mobile pages to load in less than 4 seconds. They’ve also found that 79 % of customers who are dissatisfied with a site’s performance are less likely to buy from that site again. Successful mobile optimization also includes seamless payment methods. Mobile consumers do not want to pull out a credit or debit card whenever they want to make a purchase, but they will store their credit card information on their mobile devices. This means acceptance of Android Pay, Apple Pay, and PayPal are a must for keeping abandoned cart rates down.

Customer communication is also key to growing global mobile commerce trust. Letting the mobile consumer know the status of their shipment – from fulfilment to delivery – also helps grow global e-commerce trust. You also need to attract the mobile shopper in the first place. Google has 96 % of all mobile search traffic, meaning your site must be up to speed with all its algorithm updates and changes.

In conclusion, the days of offering your customer the most seamless desktop experience is not over. However, it’s more than high time to focus on the mobile experience as well.