Mobile e-commerce is the fastest growing retail sector online year on year and retailers are starting to wake up to that fact. Just 6 months ago, the main reason to hold with implementation of mobile strategy was the cost and complexity of implementing a mobile option into existing e-commerce system. No more excuses, mobile is getting so affordable, there is no reason to wait any longer and loose sales.
Some numbers to wake you up:
- 34% have made a purchase using their mobile phone compared to 19% in 2011 (Source: DC Financial Insights, 2012)
- 25% of consumers engage in online shopping only via mobile (Source: Prosper Mobile Insights, 2012)
- By 2014, mobile Internet is predicted to take over desktop Internet usage (Source: Microsoft Tag, 2012)
- 57% of consumers will not recommend a business with a poorly designed mobile site. Similarly, 40% of consumers will go to a competitor’s site after a bad mobile experience (Source: Compuware, 2012)
- 64% of smartphone owners are now using their mobile devices to shop online (Source: eDigitalResearch and Portaltech Reply, 2012)
- US retail mobile commerce sales will increase 55.7% in 2013 vs 2012 and will account for 15% of all ecommerce (EMARKETER Published: 01/10/2013)
- Mobile sales exceeded 16% of online sales on Black Friday, up from 9.8% in 2011 ( IBM Published: 11/24/2012)
First of all, let’s clear the terminology. There are two ways to get into mobile e-commerce: native apps and web apps.
Native app you can download from the app market (Apple store or Google Play or market).
Advantages:
- can work offline
- can use phones hardware and system features like push notifications by location, loyalty check-in, QR code scanning, access phone camera and more.
Disadvantages:
- expensive to develop and maintain
- requires users to download application before they can start using it
- incompatible between devices (iPhone app will not work on Android)
Web app or mobile skin you can access via a mobile browser without the need to download any app. User simply goes to your store’s domain like www.yourstore.com and automatically see mobile version of the store optimized for smaller screens and slower connection speeds.
Advantages:
- immediate mobile access to your store.
- work across all platforms and are not device dependent.
- less expensive to develop and maintain
- easier to customize in the future
- can not work off-line
- can not access advanced phone features
Adding mobile option to Magento Commerce
- Magento offers mobile apps for iPad, iPhone and Android. Cost is $799 and $69/mo for a generic mobile application and you have to buy it for iPad, iPhone and Android separately ($2397 + $207/mo).
- Install and configure a mobile skin. There are several third party developers offer mobile skins for Magento. For example, iPhone Theme from aheadworks.com which is $224 for license and installation.
Adding mobile option into Pinnacle Cart
- Mobile edition is included in Pinnacle Cart at no extra charge (starting from version 3.7.9). Kudos to Pinnacle guys.
- At this time, I do not know any third party mobile skins for Pinnacle Cart
Adding mobile option into X-cart based store
X-cart shopping cart has multiple options available to launch your store into mobile universe.
- X-Cart Mobile Extension – this is a new extension from developers of X-cart. easy to setup and manage solution compatible with most mobile platforms including iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Bada, Palm webOS, Symbian and MeeGo. License and installation : $348
- xMobile Smartphone mobile template for X-cart – less expensive alternative from thexcartstore.com which will add a nice looking mobile interface to your X-cart based store for just $225 (license and installation). By the comments from our design integration team, this skin is harder (= more expensive) to customize.
- Mobi-cart.com – offers m-commerce application which your customers can download from the app stores as well as browse mobile store online. Plans start from $15/mo and up.
- Custom mobile skin – this option will give you the best looking custom designed mobile skin which will match your main store but it is the most expensive solution starting from $3000 (design and integration). Let me know if you want to see some examples of the mobile stores we built.
I hope this information helps you to take advantage of the growing mobile commerce and let me know if you are interested in a quote to add any of the above options to your online store.
Best regards,
Anton Pachkine
FinestShops E-Commerce Management
Hosting | Customizations | Design | Marketing
www.finestshops.com | 1-800-675-0162
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P.S. – Have you considered a makeover of your Internet store to improve online sales? If so, give me a call or email me at sales@finestshops.com. Our turnkey e-commerce system will help you sell more while devoting less time to website maintenance. Simply visit http://info.finestshops.com/free-proposal-request and provide us with a few details about your project.
