The end of the year marks out time for relaxation, vacations, and celebrations. The end of the year also marks out time for reflection. These reflections can range from the individual personal accomplishments, your family, your company, all the way up to your government. If you’re in the business of making products, selling products, or both, 2014 marked a time of unbelievable growth in mobile to research, browse, and transact. Let reflect on the state of the mobile shopping experience as we start 2015.
2014 Holiday Traffic driven by Mobile Devices
The reports are in: 60% of all traffic during the week of Black Friday in 2014 came from a mobile device. And, Lifestyle & Shopping mobile app usage lead the app category YoY growth. Here’s a chart showing YoY mobile apps usage for the various categories in the app stores:
From Showrooming and Webrooming to Mobile Payments
The truth is that shoppers use mobile for more than just browsing when it comes to the consumer journey of buying products. Showrooming and webrooming that were once a primal fear for companies are now common behaviors for the vast majority of consumers. Advancement of mobile payment technologies within companies like Braintree, Paypal, Bitcoin, Venmo, and Apple Pay in 2014 are making one-click payments a thing of beauty (and simple). You can even use your mobile device to transfer money to family and friends around the world for free via solutions like Square Cash (via email) and SnapCash (within app).
The Beauty of Mobile Reviews
PowerReviews customers like Ulta Beauty have successfully been using our APIs to power their native mobile app reviews/Q&A experiences for years with great success. Here it is live in action:
Powering Responsive Reviews
And customers like Ugg Australia have been using our on-page reviews technologies to power their responsive desktop site to insure the right content is always available to their shoppers.
Mobile Consumers to Retailers: Evolve or Perish
But this unbelievable growth in mobile usage isn’t always being met with smiling faces from consumers. Many retailers and brands are behind the curve in mobile readiness, with reports of slow page loads, inconsistent user experiences, and lack of information accessible on the mobile site/app. With product reviews being the number two element considered during a purchase behind price, you can’t afford to leave reviews + Q&A capabilities out of these experiences.
