Faster ecommerce. ebook. How mobile app speed impacts sales

Transcription

1 Faster ecommerce ebook How mobile app speed impacts sales

2 Table of Contents Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Introduction Retail traffic is shifting to mobile Importance of speed in online retail Apps are essential Examples of success Build an app. Make it fast. About Kwicr 2014 Kwicr. All rights reserved. 2

3 Introduction Mobile App Speed is Impacting Retail The proliferation of mobile devices is driving rapid growth in e-commerce. In fact, in less than two years online sales will account for a majority of major retailers business. 1 As consumers spend more time on their smart phones and tablets, companies are devoting more resources to converting mobile users into buyers. Delivering a high quality mobile experience will be essential to accomplishing that goal. Mobile apps need to be user-friendly, and they need to be relevant. But above all, they need to be fast. This ebook Examines The importance of speed in online retail How major retailers have used apps to drive sales How apps can help boost website and in-store sales How a Mobile Delivery Network can help apps overcome network adversity 1 60% of U.S. retail sales will involve the web by Kwicr. All rights reserved. 3

4 Chapter 2 Retail Traffic is Shifting to Mobile US retailers are facing a continued decline in store traffic. Aside from a small uptick in April, shopper visits have fallen by 5% or more from a year earlier in every month for the past two years. 2 That s the bad news. The good news? Online sales continue to climb. In fact, e-commerce sales were up 16.9% in 2013 an increase of nearly $40 billion. 3 The growth of e-commerce is largely due to a surge in purchasing on mobile devices. As of September 2014, mobile is the primary way that consumers shop online. 4 Evidence of this important shift abounds. A survey of mobile phone owners conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers in November 2013 found that 32% of them had purchased merchandise on a weekly basis from a website they accessed through their mobile phones. Mobile is now the primary access point to online retail for most consumers. As a result, retailers really need to rethink how they deliver their online shopping experience. Andrew Lipsman Vice President of Marketing and Insights at ComScore 2 Shoppers are Fleeing Physical Stores. 3 Total US Retail Sales Top $4.5 Trillion in 2013, Outpace GDP Growth. Top-3645-Trillion-2013-Outpace-GDP-Growth/ Exclusive: Mobile now the primary way consumers shop online Kwicr. All rights reserved. 4

5 Between March 2013 and March 2014, the number of mobile-only visitors rose for many of the Web s leading retailers, according to comscore. 5 Here are the percent increases for the top mobile performers: 88% 56% 36% 32% 23% This trend is sure to continue as a younger, digitally-native generation of consumers begin making more purchases. The same PWC study found that nearly one out of every three year olds are mobile-only shoppers year olds 5 comscore: Desktop-Based-US-Retail-ECommerce-Spending-Up-12-Percent-vs-Year-Ago 2014 Kwicr. All rights reserved. 5

6 Chapter 3 Importance of Speed in Online Retail Unfortunately, while mobile devices offer convenience, they are plagued by slow download speeds, which can cost a company money and damage its reputation. We know that when it comes to online shopping, delays are costly. A one-second delay in website page load time translates into a 7% loss in conversions. 6 That might not sound like a lot, but for a large company like Amazon, a one-second delay could mean a loss of approximately $1.6 billion in sales. 7 Consumers are willing to tolerate slightly longer wait times on mobile but just barely. In fact, 79% of smartphone users will avoid shopping at sites they consider slow. 8 And the majority of mobile websites are very slow. Why are mobile websites stuck in the mud? We can pin some of the blame on Responsive Web Design, which allows websites to change layout based on the device used. Responsive design has been praised as a strategy to meet the needs of shoppers regardless of device; however, a study by Internet Retailer found that responsive sites loaded in 3.15 seconds on desktop devices, 2.8 seconds on tablets, and a glacially slow seconds on smartphones. 9 6 The ugly truth about responsive design (and how to fix it). 7 How 1 second could cost Amazon $1.6 billion in sales The ugly truth about responsive design (and how to fix it). esponsive-design-and-how-fix-it 2014 Kwicr. All rights reserved. 6

7 Chapter 4 Apps are Essential While it s important to have a fast mobile website, it s even more important to have a fast mobile app, because the bulk of companies online sales are driven by apps. According to comscore, 80% of the time consumers spend visiting a retail site on mobile is through an app. Web-only retailers like Amazon, ebay and Etsy lead the way in generating the most mobile app traffic. Large multichannel retailers, on the other hand, generally fall well behind, with most of their mobile visits coming through mobile web browsers. 10 APPS If you re not occupying that valuable real estate on people s home screen with an app, you re potentially putting your business at risk, said Andrew Lipsman, comscore s vice president of marketing and insights. People will gravitate to ebay and Amazon s apps if others don t have good ones. 11 Mobile users spend 86% of their time on apps, according to Flurry s analysis of data from comscore and Net Marketshare % of consumers mobile browsing time is on apps Target finds rare tech edge: its popular Cartwheel shopping app Despite Time Spent, Mobile Sites Grab More Moola than Apps Kwicr. All rights reserved. 7

8 Chapter 5 Examples of Success Some retailers initially shied away from apps, concerned that they would cannibalize mobile website sales. However, according to emarketer, At this point, with more retailers having mobile websites than apps and many apps lacking commerce functionality, apps are more of a driver of mobile website sales than a threat. 71% of mobile traffic through apps As consumers begin spending more of their mobile retail time shopping in apps as opposed to web sites, more retailers are building apps or enhancing the ones they have. In the Mobile 500, the number of commerce-enabled smartphone apps is up more than 12% from last year, to 439 among 269 retailers. Add commerce-enabled tablet apps and universal apps (single apps that provide two different experiences, one for smartphone and one for tablet) and it brings the total number of apps to 601 among 269 retailers. 13 Amazon and Apple are the leaders in Internet Retailer s Mobile 500 Index in terms of sales. Their combined $31 billion in mobile sales command a 37% share of total Mobile 500 index % of mobile traffic through apps Internet Retailer Mobile Mobile Commerce Sales: The March to $59 Billion This Year Kwicr. All rights reserved. 8

9 While most large multichannel stores have struggled to make apps profitable, Target is the exception. Its Cartwheel apps allow shoppers to view and redeem coupons on their phones. Target s mobile usage was up 251% from March 2013 to March 2014, with the Cartwheel app accounting for 80% of the total increase in time spent via mobile. 15 Moreover, Target Cartwheel served as an example of how an app can drive in-store sales. Users on average spent 30% more per trip to a Target store and visited more often, leading to hundreds of millions of dollars in additional sales. 16 If retail web pages on smartphones were snappy and fast with 2-second load times, you would have a lot more people committing to buy right then and there on their smartphones rather than wait until later to complete the purchase on a device that offers far faster performance. 17 Ken Harker Senior Consultant Keynote 15 Is There an App for That? Online Retail Through the Eyes of a Cell Phone Target finds rare tech edge: its popular Cartwheel shopping app The ugly truth about responsive design (and how to fix it) Kwicr. All rights reserved. 9

10 Chapter 6 Build an App. Make it Fast. Given what we know about the importance of speed to mobile users, and the trends of consumers moving online and online shoppers embracing mobile, a retailers mission is clear: build the fastest mobile app possible. Unfortunately, an app is only as fast as the mobile network allows. Because wireless data relies on 40-year-old technology that wasn t designed for a mobile world, mobile apps are plagued by slow down-load speeds and video buffering. Interference from buildings and other electronic devices can keep data from arriving on time and in the right order. To overcome network adversity we need a new category of service one that ensures that all of the data necessary for any user interaction is there when it is needed, helping improve network throughput. Fortunately, Kwicr has just such a solution. It s called a Mobile Delivery Network and it provides users with the content they want, when and where they want it even in traditionally tricky venues like sports arenas or train stations. It improves the quality of rich media playback. And it puts app developers in control, providing them with analytics that they can use to evaluate app performance. Download the SDK Integrate Into Your App Thrill Your Users! 2014 Kwicr. All rights reserved. 10

11 Chapter 7 About Kwicr Mobile apps connect to our cloud through an easy to integrate Software Development Kit (SDK). Simply drop our SDK into your app and it s ready to go no coding required. When network conditions are challenging, our service kicks in. When mobile network performance is satisfactory, we step out of the way and let traffic flow along its normal path. We are constantly monitoring performance of the network in the background to ensure that we don t miss any opportunities to improve delivery. To learn more about Kwicr visit Kwicr 154 Middlesex Turnpike Burlington MA, USA info@kwicr.com