This year’s IRUK Top500 Mobile and Cross-channel Performance Dimension Report, published in association with Akamai, is now available online.
The report comes at a time when mobile commerce is growing quickly, and when shoppers who previously browsed and researched purchase decisions via mobile are now willing to complete their transactions online.
Ian Jindal, editor-in-chief of InternetRetailing, says mobile commerce has taken off because, “from the customer point of view, m-retailing is quite simply convenient”. He adds: “It fits in with the rest of the day. The mobile is the device that’s to hand on the journey to work, and one that consumers can use to catch up with their digital task lists, whether finding a present for an upcoming birthday party or completing the week’s grocery shopping.
“As the smartphone experience improves still further, it’s likely that we’ll see shoppers making still more of their purchases via mobile, asking customer service questions and tracking the progress of their deliveries along the way. We’ll also, no doubt, see retailers redesign the multichannel experience more effectively. Already, many are turning to mobile-first design, and a few are introducing some highly useful innovations within the mobile experience, from artificial intelligence and machine learning, to the use of merchandising measures to showcase the most relevant wares on the small screen of the mobile phone.”
But, he argues, InternetRetailing research shows that as yet the average performance is far from sophisticated. “That must, and no doubt will, change as shoppers change their habits to embrace and enable the most user-friendly customer experiences to thrive. For it’s only by satisfying the needs of shoppers that retailers of all sizes will ultimately benefit as they should from the fast move towards mobile and cross-channel shopping.”
The report features an interview with Sue Harries, director of ecommerce at Screwfix , part of the Kingfisher Group, on how the retailer has invested in mobile, and how its mobile platform is now being rolled around across the rest of the group. There are also case studies on John Lewis , Next , House of Fraser and Tesco .
The 12 approaches that work feature takes snapshots of strategies employed by leading retailers in this Dimension, while an Emerging practice feature looks ahead to what it will mean to do business in a mobile-first world.
Analysis of InternetRetailing research in this dimension includes an overview of our most recent research in the Mobile & Cross-channel Dimension. For new research, we outline the findings of InternetRetailing Knowledge Partner, Ampersand in its latest Multichannel Retail Report.
Click here to download the IRUK Top500 Mobile and Multichannel Performance Dimension Report. Click here to explore the Top500 series of reports further.
