Crossplatform still a must

[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”16759″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text][/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1526538579114{margin-left: 20px !important;}”]Smartphones have, in a few decades, redefined ways people live and interact— some Generation Zs may not have looked at the sky for months except to take the occasional selfie. However according to a recent report, more e-commerce sales are still made on computers than on phones.

A study conducted by Adobe Analytics (1) last year showed that two-thirds of the $6.59 billion e-commerce store revenues generated on Cyber Monday 2017 came from purchases made on computers.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1526538592956{margin-right: 20px !important;}”]

An Adobe analysis of one trillion visits to more than 4,500 e-commerce websites
revealed that 52.5 percent of the people who visited those online stores on Monday,
Nov. 27, following the Thanksgiving holiday in United States, did so from computers,
generating 66.9 percent of those stores’ revenues. Nearly 40 percent of the visitors used their
smartphones to buy, producing 24 percent of the stores’ revenues, while the remaining
8 percent or so of the visitors used tablets and made for 9 percent of the revenues

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1526538612043{margin-right: 20px !important;margin-left: 20px !important;}”]As Jakob Nielsen of the Nielsen Norman Group explained in an article last December (2), this gives a ratio of revenue/visit of 1.27 for computers, 0.60 for smartphones and 1.18 for tablets, that is, nearly as much as for computers. “[T]he average mobile visitor bought less than half of the spending by average desktop visitors,” he said.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1526538801892{margin-right: 20px !important;margin-left: 20px !important;}”]

Adobe data: Cyber Monday 2017	Traffic	Revenue	Nielsen Norman Group: ratio revenue/visit
Desktop computers	52.5%	66.9%	1.27
Smartphones	39.9%	24.1%	0.60
Tablets	7.6%	9%	1.18

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1526538643345{margin-left: 20px !important;}”]And yet, while sales on computers still greatly surpass those made on phones, the gap has been diminishing every year since 2014 as Mr. Nielsen’s following graphic demonstrates—since the percentage of sales on tablets has remained constant from year to year, he did not include them in the chart, he said.

Year	% of sales done on desktop vs. smartphone
2014	288%
2015	224%
2016	143%
2017	111%

What may explain that people still purchase more on computers? Could it be that some prefer larger screens when the time comes to enter payment information? That many
browsing on smartphones have but a few minutes to do so and run out of time to purchase? Or that browsers may include children and those in their early teens who might not purchase themselves? For Mr. Nielsen, however, this all comes down to content. “There is no real reason to believe that desktop visitors are richer than mobile visitors,” he writes. “Indeed, today a desktop computer is cheaper than the newest generation of smartphones. Thus[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1526538656308{margin-right: 20px !important;}”]I believe that the lower sales on mobile are caused by a worse user experience than the one offered up to shoppers visiting from desktop computers.” Mr. Nielsen—who has been called a world expert in web usability in publications such as The New York Times, Fortune and the Financial Times—believes site design may explain and could greatly help narrow the gap.

“On a typical desktop screen, the user might be able to see six products at a glance [without scrolling] whereas a mobile-phone user might only see three products,” he said, adding that the actual numbers depend on site design and screen size. “Thus, it’s dramatically more important for the site to get the prioritization of the product listing right on mobile than on desktop.

” In both cases, quality photos are crucial as products have to be clearly visible on smaller phone screens and must appear with all their details discernable on computer screens, Mr. Nielsen added.

For e-commerce stores whose products appeal to customers of all ages, designing for both platforms is the more crucial that people tend to favor either smartphones or computers along the generation divide as a HubSpot Content Trends Survey (3) showed late last year.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”16795″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]A survey of 3,010 people in four countries— United States, Germany, Columbia and Mexico—indicated that more than two thirds of the people under 35 and about half of those 35 to 44 years old prefer to browse on their smartphones. Among people 45 to 54 years old, 57 percent prefer computers, and 67 percent of those 55 and over also prefer computers. In addition, more than 10 percent of those 35 and older favor tablets to browse the internet.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]To recap, for the time being e-commerce owners still need their websites to be designed for all platforms in order to reach every potential customer.

However, those whose products target specific customer profiles and age groups often focus on design and marketing tools meant for the platform(s) their customers favor.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text](1) http://news.adobe.com/press-release/experience-cloud/adobe-data-shows-cybermonday-largest-online-sales-day-history-659
(2) https://www.nngroup.com/articles/m-commerce-terrible-ux/
(3) https://research.hubspot.com/content-trends-preferences[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

PEOPLE BROWSE ON SMARTPHONES BUT BUY MORE ON COMPUTERS – AT LEAST FOR NOW

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