Why it's time to rethink how you sell online.
Mobile tech has changed everything – particularly how we shop. No longer do we set aside hours to browse online or brave the elements to hit the high street.
We order plugs when queueing for our latte at Costa and do our supermarket shop while half-watching Netflix in bed.
Two years ago, 70 per cent of our shopping was done on mobile. That figure will have almost certainly rocketed since then.
The reality of e-commerce is that it is ‘mobile first’, a term which, until just a few years back, meant your website didn’t crash on a small screen.
How that’s changed.
Now it means designing your entire digital experience around how people really behave.
Shoppers no longer want to land on a website and stay there. They expect to be able to hop around various platforms – be it apps, sites or social – smoothly and without any hiccups.
I call this ‘channel ubiquity’: being everywhere your customers are but in one smooth, joined-up experience.
So how do you achieve it?
Speed matters
If your website takes longer to load than it does to sip that latte you ordered earlier while plug shopping, you’ve lost the sale.
Every extra millisecond you make a customer wait is a conversion killer.
Think fast images, zero lag and smooth transitions.
The modern shopper has a shrinking attention span and wants instant results, and if you can’t give them that, then they’ll simply scroll to your competitors.
The best systems are engineered for the real world. They are fast, resilient, and ready for patchy connections and short attention spans.
Make buying simple
The checkout page can be a graveyard for your sales.
Just ask yourself this: How many times have you come to pay online, only to be asked to fill in a form longer than your self-assessment?!
Or even worse, create an account with a fiddly password you’ll never remember.
As their names suggest – Apple Pay, Google Pay and PayPal – all pay to use. They make checkout easy.
Fewer steps = more sales.
Connect everything
Shoppers may first spot your product on Instagram, add it to the site’s wish list, and then eventually buy it on your app.
That’s great, but if your systems don’t talk to each other, their experience falls apart.
This is where composable commerce comes in.
That sounds fancy, but it’s a way of saying your data and platforms should sync up behind the scenes so that customers can always pick up where they left off.
Make it personal…
…but don’t make it creepy.
We already all feel like we are being listened to on our devices, so don’t turn this into digital surveillance.
A gentle reminder about what they’ve left in their basket is not only fine, but sensible as it could easily nudge up your sales.
Think of this as a shop assistant: A good one will ensure you have what you need, but won’t pester you around the store.
Keep testing
Your platforms all differ, and what might fly on your app might flop on your website.
Try, test and tinker.
Small, consistent improvements often outperform big overhauls.
At Resolved, this approach has fuelled our own growth.
We’ve supported businesses globally to revitalise their existing e-commerce platforms, not by building shiny new platforms, but by turbo-charging what was already there.
And we know that mobile matters. As the stats show, it is now firmly the beating heart of retail.
But if your systems don’t reflect that, you’ll fall behind.
However, if you can get your systems singing from the same hymn sheet, and ensure they are fast, easy and consistent – you’ll turn browsers into buyers.
resolvedgroup.co.uk