E-Commerce Websites and In-Store Shopping Transforms Buying Experience Together
The Holidays are upon us and that means holiday shopping is underway. With Black Friday doorbuster deals, consumers are looking for the best possible prices on hot-ticket items for the whole family. This year, more consumers are using their mobile devices to help find and purchase those items, without even stepping foot in the physical store.
Full infographic at entrepreneur.com
According to entrepreneur.com, 24% of consumers used mobile devices to visit a retailer’s site on Thanksgiving and Black Friday of last year. There’s no doubt that the mobile shopping has changed drastically in the last couple of years and the numbers are showing that consumers are growing more comfortable with making mobile purchases than ever before. A whopping $20.9 Billion was spent using mobile devices last December, and that number is projected to rise to $34.2 Billion this December.
But not all consumers are skipping the in-store shopping experience altogether. In the past 6 months, almost 75% of shoppers have confessed to “Showrooming” – the act of searching for a product in a store, then going home to buy it cheaper online. While at the store, 33% of them used a mobile device to check competitors prices and 31% used their mobile device to check product reviews. 71% of those who admitted to showrooming ended up buying it from a different company online.
An even larger number of consumers, 88% in the last 6 months, have admitted to “Webrooming”, or finding a product online and then going to the store to buy it. 47% of them say they do this to avoid shipping costs, while 46% of them say they want to touch and feel the product before buying it.
Holiday shopping apps are making the buying experience easier (and more engaging) than ever before! Comparison shopping, loyalty programs, wishlists and registries, mobile payment platforms and friend referral programs are elements of great retail applications. Tablets account for 55% of mobile sales and 95% of at-home purchases. Smartphones, on the other hand, account for 45% of mobile sales and 72% of at-home purchases.
These figures are dramatically affecting the way retailers are creating their websites. Having responsive web design is more important now than ever before! If a website is only made to look good on a desktop computer, the retailer is missing out on the large mobile-using audience, and therefore losing money. Retail stores without an online presence of any kind are missing out on a huge opportunity this holiday season.
Hire the Right Web Design Company to Get Your Business Online
For questions on how to get your business in the online marketplace, give the online marketing pros at KO Websites a call today at 510-276-9902. We have over 10 years of web design experience and are highly skilled in the business of making mobile-friendly websites. What are you waiting for? There are millions of mobile users waiting to shop your site.