Integrating Mobile Commerce as Another Channel for Sales

SAN DIEGO, June 1 /PRNewswire/ -- As the use of smartphones enters a period of explosive growth, it's never been more important for Web stores to use new technology and targeted strategies to accommodate mobile devices.

According to Canalys, which analyzes market data for tech companies worldwide, smartphone shipments in North America will exceed 65 million units in 2010, a jump of 37 percent from the 47 million sold in 2009. Nielsen projects that smartphones will be used by 150 million people in the U.S. alone by mid 2011, which is half of the country's cell phone market. Globally, the number of cell phone subscribers will reach 4.6 billion this year, says U.N. Telecommunications Agency. And they project that broadband subscriptions worldwide will exceed a billion by the beginning of 2011.

The IPad and Netbooks: An Emerging Market

Along with smartphones, there are other players in the game. Apple's iPad, the tablet computer that created a huge buzz even before it came to market on April 3, is the newest. It topped 600,000 in sales the first week, according to several news sources. And netbooks continue to be popular, too, despite a recent slight from Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who referred to them as "cheap laptops" that "aren't better than anything." A recent article in Bloomberg BusinessWeek pegged netbook sales for the first quarter of 2010 at 4.8 million units. Both the iPad and netbooks are available with wireless Internet built in, so users can be online anywhere. That means they can visit Web stores anywhere and buy anywhere.

When you factor in all of these advances in information-gathering technology, one thing becomes abundantly clear: Mobile shopping is here to stay, and it will account for a growing share of retail sales with each passing year.

Key Strategies to Increase Mobile Sales at Your Web Store

Given the rapidly shifting landscape, Web store owners have to adjust or risk losing sales. Zoovy, a company that helps online merchants market their products and services, addresses this issue by fitting e-commerce clients with dynamic templates that instantly modify the appearance of their site to suit whatever type of device a shopper is using. If potential customers are browsing on a regular computer, Zoovy technology delivers the fully featured store. But if they're browsing on a mobile phone, the format will be optimized for a more streamlined presentation.

Here are some challenges that Web store owners face when serving both mobile devices and standard desktop or laptop computers:

• Handling the wide variety of scripting languages and multimedia platforms. JavaScript. HTML. Flash. CSS. There's a lot out there. It's crucial to have a common denominator in your code that works with as many devices as possible.
• Simplifying for the mobile market. In many cases, smartphones won't support complex formatting or interactions, so if an e-commerce site relies heavily on a platform like Flash, many mobile customers will see big, blank boxes instead of content. "Web store owners have learned their lesson," says Joel Griffin Dodd, director of marketing and communications at Zoovy. "Bells and whistles are no good if they cost you customers."
• Pyramid formatting. In journalism, the basic guideline for news stories dictates that the most important facts come first. The same principle applies for optimizing Web store content for a mobile market. Information that's most likely to entice a customer to buy – the name of the product, a key piece of art, the price, the add-to-cart button and the essential details – must be at the top.

One-stop Shopping Through Zoovy

In the past, many e-commerce businesses had to operate two Web stores, one to serve standard computers and another to serve the mobile market. Of course, that forced owners to synchronize information from separate sources – a huge headache. Using the Zoovy Complete solution, a Web store can easily run a single site and increase sales by dynamically reconfiguring content for delivery to a broad audience, both mobile and standard.

For more information on how the Zoovy Complete assisted e-commerce platform can expand your business by integrating mobile commerce, visit https://www.zoovy.com/complete or call 1.877.966.8948 to speak to an e-business development specialist.

SOURCE Zoovy, Inc.