Mobile is set to account for 54% of all online sales this year – however conversion rates are around 2%. Why are so many missing out on reaping mobile’s full potential?
Lack of optimisation, that’s why. According to research by Contentsquare, users are increasingly using mobile as their preferred channel for online shopping, however poor user experience because sites aren’t optimised for mobile stops them spending more.
Contentsquare data suggests consumers were more than willing to shop on their smartphones, but the quality of their experience often caused them to exit. According to its data, non-buyers spend an average of six minutes viewing an average of six pages on desktop and three minutes viewing five pages on mobile.
Buyers, on the other hand, typically spend an average of 24 minutes viewing and average of 28 pages in desktop, while mobile buyers spend 21 minutes viewing 26 pages, on average.
While desktop and mobile consumers exhibit similar user behaviour when their journey ends in a purchase, non-buyers abandon their journey much quicker on mobile than desktop. As the data shows, non-purchasing sessions on mobile last half the time of those on desktop.
According to the study, users who start their journey on a product page spend less time on a site than those who enter through a non-product page – three minutes versus eight minutes – and only one in two users persevere in their journey after landing on a product.
However, according to its research Contentsquare finds that getting customers to take that final step continues to be an issue on mobile. Mobile users who reach the shopping cart have a 16.8% conversion rate – almost half the conversion rate of those on desktop (32.2%).
In other words, more than 80% of mobile users who reach the cart don’t complete their purchase.
Moreover, data shows that mobile users who reached the checkout page but didn’t commit to a purchase spent more time on the page and interacted with it more than those who did purchase. Non-buyers had a 33% higher activity rate than those who made a purchase.
What gives on mobile?
The question for brands is: what happens on that page between entry and exit? Traditional tools like Google and Adobe Analytics can show you which pages users struggle on, but they can’t tell you which elements on the page are causing frustration, or why they leave.
Forms are a common source of frustration for mobile users, who are often forced to tap on a field repeatedly to get the desired result. Traditional analytics would be unable to track this interaction, simply registering whether they completed the form or not. With a UX Analytics Platform like Contentsquare, you can see in-page metrics, such as click recurrence, which reveals how many times users tap each form field, revealing which are they’re struggling with.
The best landing page often depends on traffic source, finds the study. For emails, typically users click through to see a particular product or offer that catches their interest. For search, they’d rather land on a category page so they can browse more efficiently.
Contentsqaure’s journey analysis shows visitors that come from a mobile email and land on a product page are far more likely to continue browsing (only 8% exit).
But more than 80% of visitors that come from a mobile email and land on the homepage, exit immediately.
According to the study, brands should look to encourage browsing behaviour, as the user might not want to convert immediately. Perhaps they’ll go in-store, or purchase at the end of the month when they get paid. But if you can keep them on-site, you’ll get big benefits in terms of brand and product awareness.
Image: Contentsquare
