Shoe retailer Foot Asylum has increased revenues through the mobile channel by an astonishing 500%, on increased traffic of up to 14% per month following the optimisation of its website to handle the growing level of traffic hitting it from mobile devices.
Throughout 2011 Affiliate Window saw the share of traffic through mobile devices increase from 2% to 9%. In this period the share of sales through these devices increased from 1.5 – 6% of all sales through the network.
These mobile trends were occurring because of a change in consumer behaviour. With technology available at their fingertips and on the move, mobile internet usage spiralled. This shift was occurring in spite of advertiser’s best efforts rather than because of them. Consumers were visiting retailers through mobile devices that did not have optimised sites in place. This led to a complicated transaction process that may have made visitors abandon their attempts to purchase, resulting in poor conversion rates through mobile.
The challenge for Foot Asylum was to take advantage of the increased mobile traffic they were receiving. So the retailer enlisted One Iota to design and build a fully optimised mobile site. This made navigation simple and provided an intuitive way to add products to the basket as well as the ability to checkout with ease.
This also enabled Foot Asylum to take advantage of the numerous opportunities that presented themselves within the affiliate channel. With tracking in place, affiliates were able to include them within their mobile sites/apps, safe in the knowledge they would be rewarded for any sales they generated through the mobile site.
The results that Foot Asylum achieved through developing a mobile optimised site were phenomenal. Prior to the rollout of the site, less than 1% of sales were being generated through mobile handsets. In the first month of the site being live this had increased to 1.4%. Each month Foot Asylum has seen their share of mobile sales increase. In February an incredible 14% of total sales through the affiliate channel were converting through the mobile site.
Revenue generated by mobile handsets has increased by a staggering 500% from August – February.
By understanding the shift in consumer purchasing habits, Foot Asylum has been able to take advantage of the opportunities that mobile presents. With this trend set to continue, they are well placed to reap the rewards.
“With the growth of m-commerce we were seeing a high proportion of our visitors coming through mobile devices. However, the challenge for us was to take advantage of this mobile activity and convert this traffic,” explains Emma Ryder, Online Marketing Assistant, Foot Asylum. “When a potential customer arrived through a mobile handset and was presented with the e-commerce version of the site, they were faced with a fiddly process in order to transact. This ultimately resulted in a drop off in conversions.”
Ryder concludes: “We enlisted the help of One Iota to develop a crisp and clean mobile site, with a smooth transaction process. Since we launched the mobile optimised version of the site, results have been phenomenal. In just 6 months we saw our share of sales through mobile devices increase from 1.5% to 14%. Not only that, mobile visitors transacting through the mobile optimised version of the site are spending more. We expect to see this increase further over the remainder of the year”
