With mcommerce now 12% of overall ecommerce sales in the US and 5% in the UK, UK retailers need to improve mobile website optimisation with an
Skava, a major provider of digital commerce, digital marketing, and digital in-store technologies to brands including Staples, GAP and Banana Republic, has announced the results of its annual ‘UK Retailer Mobile Optimisation’ report. The report indicates that despite the surge in mobile traffic, which now accounts for nearly 20% of all e-commerce traffic, a quarter of the top 100 UK retailers have yet to optimise their e-commerce websites for mobile devices.
Although, this is a 26% increase on the 50% of UK retailers who had optimised for mobile by March 2013, UK retailers still lag behind the US, where 100% of the top US retailers have optimised. To view last year’s report, click here.
According to eMarketer’s latest forecasts , worldwide business-to-consumer (B2C) ecommerce sales will increase by 20.1% in 2014, reaching $1.500trillion.
In the US, 12% of overall ecommerce revenue is now made up of mcommerce sales, according to BI Intelligence.
The major UK mobile retailer Argos received £400m in mcommerce sales, accounting for 10% of their overall online sales. However, on average the top 20 UK retailers have 5% of revenue coming from mcommerce according to the 2013 Internet Retailer Global Mobile 500.
Arish Ali, Skava CEO and co-founder, said: “In Europe, some retailers are still arguing the importance of mobile as a significant source of revenue, yet leading UK retailer Argos generated £400 million in mccomerce last year, accounting for 10% of overall ecommerce revenue. The increase in ecommerce revenue overall is masking the loss of revenue through poorly converting mobile websites.
“Simply creating a mobile website is no longer efficient, but retailers must build mobile optimised websites with a conversion-first approach. The launch of a mobile website is not the end of a retailer’s mobile strategy, but just the beginning. Like e-commerce websites before them, they require constant updates based on analysis of user behaviour to create a seamless shopping experience.”
In the 2013 Mobile 500 report published by Internet Retailer, only 20 UK retailers made the list. But these leading UK retailers saw an average of 2% on mobile compared to 4.3% on desktop.
“Mobile is the fastest growing sector of ecommerce, yet our data shows that retailers have still to adapt to the changing landscape,” added Paul Morrison, UK country manager, Skava. “Mcommerce has increased 78% in the last year and the innovative retailers which have moved beyond their first-generation Œstatic site scraped’ to a conversion-driven design are reaping the rewards.”
To highlight the financial implications for retailer’s not optimising their websites for mobile, Skava developed the SkavaONE Calculator. By using a retailer’s average order value (AOV), traffic and conversion rates from all platforms, the SkavaONE Calculator rapidly informs retail executives on the serious long-term financial implications for retailers with under-performing mobile commerce experiences.