Optimizing for Today’s Tablet Shoppers

Administrator — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 19:00:00 GMT

By Ken Burke, Founder and Executive Chairman, MarketLive

The numbers don’t lie. Tablets are taking over e-commerce.

The latest indicators of the tablet phenomenon surfaced over the 2012 holiday kick-off weekend. Data captured across several MarketLive merchants revealed the following statistics:

**Tablet traffic accounted for 8-19 percent of total shopping traffic from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday

**Total sales from tablet devices ranged from 7-17 percent, with iPads representing a disproportionate 94 percent majority

**Tablet shoppers converted as much as 38 percent higher and average order sizes were up to 15 percent greater

Tablets also figure prominently in pre-sale consumer activities. More than half of tablet users have looked up product and price information, searched for store location, or read customer reviews at least once in the last month and 17 percent have done so almost daily. Unfortunately, with respect to their tablet experiences, more than 40 percent of tablet users report that they regularly experience problems such as site crashes, functionality breakdowns and formatting issues.

So if you’re looking to boost sales, optimizing your e-commerce site for tablet users could give you just the edge you need. Admittedly the tablet landscape continues to evolve rapidly and is not without a few challenges brought by the growing array of new devices. Still, deploying a few key optimizations to tailor your online shopping experience for tablet visitors, without committing to native app development or to a complete, responsive design influenced re-platform, is an efficient, winning approach. What follows is a few of the recommendations for tablet optimizations.

The Need for Speed

The bar is high. According to Compuware, more than two thirds of tablet users expect websites to load just as quickly, or quicker, than they would on a desktop computer – in two seconds or less. A challenge, since tablet access is often via 3G or slow, public Wi-Fi networks. However, following a few basic development guidelines can rev up your site’s performance across all devices and networks:

• Make sure all page images are highly optimized. Consider using a CDN (Content Delivery Network) to help.

• Limit the number of animations on each individual page.

• Remove legacy/unused JavaScript, CSS and tags.

• Reduce the number of ‘Include’ files.

The Significance of Swipe

Tablet users expect to be able to use their fingers to swipe, zoom and pinch. If key areas of your site aren’t swipe-able these visitors are more likely to abandon out of frustration. Presenting a slightly modified, swipe-friendly experience to these visitors is one of the most important tablet optimizations you can make:

• Modify featured content. Swipe-friendly features keep users browsing and shopping. Replace static feature areas and button controlled sliders with scrolling, swipe-able content.

• Update product carousels. On the desktop, product carousels are a great way to showcase top-selling products and special product assortments using a minimal footprint. Detect tablet visitors and switch from button to swipe control for improved satisfaction and increased exposure.

• Adjust alternate views. On your product detail pages, make it easy for users to switch between alternate images with a simple swipe.

“Tap-Ability” and Finger-Friendly Design

Good gesture-based interface design recognizes that tablet users “tap.” The easy click precision of the mouse arrow is almost impossible with finger access, so some of the most effective tablet optimizations you can tackle are to make sure key areas are “tap-ready:”

• Be “fat-thumb” friendly. Make buttons large and bright. Replace tightly clustered, small text menus with well-spaced buttons or larger text links, separate long category lists into small groups, and always be sure to surround all clickable elements with ample white space. These tactics improve click accuracy and activity and are proving equally successful as desktop enhancements.

• Replace hover interactions. The hover states used in navigation drop-down menus, button designs and to bring up quick view and “more info” windows can be extremely effective on desktop sites but can be almost impossible to control on many tablets. Often completely unsupported, they can result in frustrating click errors as tablet visitors make repeat attempts to open and close hover content. Instead, use fixed place buttons and links to invoke drop-downs and modal windows. Tip: don’t forget to incorporate large, finger-friendly visual cues including large close buttons to facilitate easy, accurate window exits.

• Create “tap-ready” order options. Replace product configuration drop-downs, such as color, size and other order options with “tap-on, tap-off” design elements. Color swatches, boxes with sizes inside and other picture-based elements are efficient and effective.

• Eliminate Flash animation. The ubiquitous use of Flash in website design presents challenges unique to Apple devices since the technology is unsupported. Although the adoption of Android and Windows devices is on the rise, iPad ownership and shopping visits are disproportionately large. To eliminate the frustration caused by broken content displays, replace Flash functionality with JavaScript, HTML5 and in some cases, static content.

(Example: large, easy-tap buttons in a tablet-ready, accordion checkout.)

Save Typing, Save Sales

Consumers generally prefer to use tablets over mobile phones for online shopping, yet one in five finds tablets as cumbersome as phones when it comes to entering information (Forrester Research). The right adjustments to search and forms will mitigate many tablet abandons and directly impact conversion and sales. Prefill or suggest content to limit typing wherever possible, and when there is no alternative:

• Help site search users with predictive, “type ahead” search suggestions.

• Prefill forms anywhere possible.

• Always invoke the appropriate keyboard for each field, e.g. alpha for name fields, numeric for zip code fields, etc.

• Make form fields large enough and long enough for the text required.

• Deploy clickable plus/minus signs for quantity adjustments.

• Use drop downs when there’s no other alternative.

(Example: This merchant's leverages good site search, improving the customer experience.)

If You Build It, Will They Come?

What is your best option for implementing a tablet strategy? Should you modify your laptop/desktop website for tablet visitors? Re-platform using responsive design techniques? Build a special tablet application? At present, the prevailing approach seems to be adopting a wait-and-see attitude to gain a clearer understanding about the primary needs, expectations and behavior of tablet shoppers. Most consumers surveyed by Forrester within the last year still generally prefer the “traditional” site during their shopping experience.

One already proven certainty is that a modest, immediate investment in an improved tablet experience can have a measurable impact on satisfaction and sales, and many of the same optimizations even enhance your desktop site effectiveness. Whether not to you decide to ultimately invest in building a separate app for tablet users, or to update your platform around responsive design, it’s still vital to start optimizing for tablet traffic as quickly as possible.

About the Author:

Ken Burke is the Chairman, Founder, & Chief Evangelist of MarketLive, Inc. Ken founded MarketLive Inc. as Multimedia Live in 1995 with $500 in start-up money. Under his guidance it has grown into a leading provider of e-commerce software and related solutions. Ken is the developer of the MarketLive Intelligent Selling System, MarketLive's enterprise-class e-commerce application designed to optimize selling opportunities, build relationships with customers and give merchants control over their online merchandising. Ken is the author of "Intelligent Selling: The Art & Science of Selling Online."

BuySAFE & MarketLive Join Forces

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 20:15:00 GMT

Ecommerce software provider MarketLive and Buysafe, a provider of conversion and customer satisfaction programs for Internet retailers, announced a partnership today that is indicative of the steps many are taking to improve customer confidence and ramp up sales.

MarketLive's ecommerce platform will integrate the buySAFE Guaranteed program, which allows customers to try the service risk free - including the cost of implimentation. The buySAFE program provides shoppers a 3rd party guarantee of the purchase terms of sale, $10,000 worth of identify theft protection and a $100 lowest price guarantee - sof the store price drops, buySAFE pays the difference.

"Our customers are having a very successful 2011 and are poised for continued success in 2012. It is important for retailers to build on that momentum by moving from multichannel commerce to building holistic customer-centric approaches across channels," said Mark Pierce, CEO of MarketLive. "By doing so, we believe our customers will build customer loyalty, increase the value of their brands and experience growth in 2012 and beyond. buySAFE is a key component of this strategy and we are pleased to bring buySAFE to all of our customers."

MarketLive Report Suggests a Promising Holiday Season

Allison Howen — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 15:00:00 GMT

E-commerce provider MarketLive has released a report that examines the third-quarter performance data from more than 100 retail sites, as well as provides tips for the upcoming holiday season.

The MarketLive Performance Index Volume 16, Q3 2011 Update: Anticipating the Holiday Rush, reveals that online retailers have seen increases in traffic and revenue during the third quarter. The findings include a 16-percent increase in visitors, 18-percent increase in revenue, 5-percent increase in conversions and 15-percent increase in the “1-and-out” rate (the percentage of visits ending after one page).

"It will be critical for merchants to find ways – beyond just slashing prices – to engage holiday shoppers who are likely to research and shop heavily online,” says Mark Pierce, MarketLive CEO. “Those who succeed in doing that will see larger gains in conversion and sales."

The report also includes some 2011 holiday strategy tips, including:

• Promote preseason bargains to encourage immediate and early bird shoppers, also emphasize the scarcity of popular items.

• Highlight customer service initiatives by promoting site-to-store purchasing and providing detailed information about delivery cutoff dates.

• Use social media to connect with shoppers on-the-go and tell them about is store offerings.

MarketLive Merchants Get MyBuys Remarketing

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 15:30:00 GMT

Ecommerce software provider MarketLive has partnered with MyBuys, a profile-driven remarketing suite. Unless you've been living under a rock the past six months, you'll know that remarketing is the hottest thing in e-commerce since the rise of sophisticated product recommendation technologies.

The MyBuys Profile-Driven Remarketing Suite gives retailers multiple options (email and display advertising) for bringing shoppers back to their sites to buy for the first time, or to encourage repeat purchase. MyBuys, (much like other remarketing solutions, learns about each individual shopper and understands the brands, products, and attributes of interest, then uses those insights to send targeted emails and personalized display ads to each shopper, enticing them to return.

“We constantly look for ways to add value for our merchants by enhancing the already robust marketing, merchandising, selling, servicing, and analytics capabilities of our eCommerce platform,” said Mark Pierce, President of MarketLive. “The agreement with MyBuys builds upon and strengthens our long-term partnership and gives MarketLive merchants seamless access to the MyBuys Remarketing Suite. The solution will enhance merchants’ ability to generate repeat sales and increase customer loyalty.”

'Net Features : marketlive

Optimizing for Today’s Tablet Shoppers

BuySAFE & MarketLive Join Forces

MarketLive Report Suggests a Promising Holiday Season

MarketLive Merchants Get MyBuys Remarketing