Consumers are opting to use mobile technology, for ease and speed, more and more. By 2015, Juniper Research predicts a 40% rise in mobile payments, highlighting the importance of e-tail sites on the go are for any successful retailer.
By Emma Gooderham, managing director of WorldAddresses.com
Recognising the increase in m-commerce, retailers have dedicated significant resource to ensure ease of navigation around their mobile app – often using Quick Response (QR) code technology.
When a customer decides to make a purchase however, it seems the efforts to facilitate m-commerce has not yet permeated to the checkout pages.
Consumers, having easily browsed the app, must then enter their address details line by line on a fiddly mobile keypad – risking loss of patience that could result in customers abandoning their baskets.
Retailers must hold off putting all their eggs in the M-Commerce basket by first ensuring that their e-tail site also allows effective and rapid data entry.
Just not thinking
The emphasis retailers are placing on the development of m-commerce appears to be well-founded, with Verdict & Ovum envisaging that the industry double in size within the next two years, from £123m to £275m. Furthermore, eMarketer predicts that the number of smartphones in the UK will account for a third of all mobile devices by 2014.
These figures demonstrate mobile commerce a huge opportunity for retailers, but the potential to get it wrong is very real. Those retailers that make huge efforts to design their website to facilitate m-commerce are often the same organisations that give little thought to the ease of data entry during the purchase process.
Mobile challenges
Retailers should recognise that no two channels are the same and should respond accordingly to the specific problems presented by each. For mobile, problems are likely to arise when using the small screen and keyboard to enter several lines of an address.
And even if completed, the likelihood of people making typos is high. Mobile application developers should therefore be looking for ways to ensure it is easy for customers to input and verify address details. Simple solutions are available, such as postcode lookup software, where a full address is pre-populated through the entry of a postcode.
Reduce the errors and improve loyalty
By neglecting data entry at the basket pages, retailers risk frustrating their customers, who could easily abandon their basket or even divert to a competitor’s site that is geared up for simplified mobile data entry. Implementation of postcode address lookup can significantly reduce data entry headaches by removing on average 80% of the keystrokes required for inputting an address, according to Marketing Sherpa.
Furthermore, verification of an address means that payments are less likely to be refused when the billing details are incorrect and misdeliveries will reduce. Shoppers are more likely to blame retailers for misdeliveries due to incorrect input rather than themselves. The Royal Mail receives 70,000 undeliverable items to their depot every day, a statistic that clearly demonstrates the scale of the problem.
Don’t miss
Tailoring the mobile payment process to suit the channel and not simply replicating the online payment process is essential. If brands choose to duplicate the online payment method to the mobile process, difficulties with data input will present a major flaw and could ultimately mean that a brand’s bottom line and reputation is hit as a result of undelivered items.
But give customers a seamless service – which ensures the experience is as efficient on the move as it is at home, and shoppers are more likely to return and won’t be driven, disgruntled, into the hands of your nearest rival.
Speak Your Mind