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Shoppers reveal their growing frustrations with mobile – and what to do about it

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Despite the increasingly rapid rise of mobile as the preferred online shopping channel, consumers are starting to be more vocal about their frustrations and what they don’t like about it – and retailers need to listen up as there is much at stake.

A recent study by Connexity of more than 100,000 online shoppers found their most common frustrations were the need to constantly enlarge the screen (33%) in order to click on the right part of the brand experience and slow loading pages, which irritated a quarter of UK shoppers (25%).

Aside from the visual difficulties of navigating a small screen, shoppers are also concerned about their data’s security, with over ten per cent (11%) raising this as an annoyance affecting their hunger for mobile commerce.

The top eight frustrations are:

“Mobile shoppers are frustrated by online experiences that are compromised by the size of their device. Until the technology provides more flexible options for display, brands need to get smart about the way information is displayed and accessed,” says Hayley Silver, VP of Insights at Connexity.

But the problems of mobile frustrations run much deeper as mobile is now integral to all facets of retail from online to in-store.

According to Andy Burton, CEO of Tryzens, a leading provider of retail and B2B digital commerce solutions, UK retailers are only doing the bare minimum to capitalise on the popularity of mobile shopping, with limited mobile-optimised websites and low in-store solutions.

“This needs to be addressed by today’s ecommerce businesses to truly take advantage of the continually shifting purchasing habits of today’s consumers,” Burton says.

This is born out by Vend’s 2016 Retail Trends and Predictions. It featured forecasts from retail industry experts on the direction of the sector this year. Of the top predictions featured, over half of them discussed how the role of mobile devices is set to rise for modern retailers, stressing the need to ecommerce managers to implement strong mobile solutions to take advantage of this market direction.

Burton continues: “Critically, mobile strategies from UK retailers have to synch up with their ecommerce and in-store offers to enable a complete omnichannel experience for customers. From apps, to mobile commerce, to social media ‘shopable’ content, the options are numerous and growing.”

According to Burton “Retailers underinvest in mobile optimisation at their peril. There is always room for improvement, whether it be a truly responsive site, simple payment options – Apple , Amazon , Klarna – increased service options when shopping on mobile, QR code scanning for offers, in-store stock-checking and mobile-first sales periods, there are numerous tactics retailers can employ to capitalise on shoppers comfortable with mobile technologies.

“The message to retailers is clear: improve your mobile strategies or risk losing out. It is vital that ecommerce businesses recognise this fact, or else they could risk losing customers to more tech-savvy retailers as the developing market leaves them behind,” he concluded.

Some top tips

So what can retialers do? Connexity’s Silver has some top tips.

  • Favour images: Up the image ratio so they represent at least 50% of screen space and reduce image sizes to fit the page

  • Larger text = less text: Always ask, “how can we say this in fewer words?” Then ask that question again and again

  • Improve discoverability: Sometimes your products will be harder to find on a mobile site, so make sure that navigation is consistent

  • Offer payment alternatives: Solutions like PayPal, Google Wallet and Visa Checkout don’t require shoppers to enter their personal information, which many shoppers prefer

  • Remind shoppers that their information is safe

  • Use terminology such as “enter secure checkout” throughout your mobile site to ease customer concerns over data security.

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