The New Face of Your Mobile E-Commerce Website
Nowadays more and more people are using their smartphones instead of desktop computers. And what is more important here is that they are using smartphones even for shopping and purchasing, not entertaining and communicating only. That’s why website creators must respond quickly to these tendencies, using all possible means to provide full-scale mobile-friendly websites.
Today, we’ll tell you what is going to be changed when creating a mobile-optimized website as compared to an ordinary one.
Home Pages
When viewed on a mobile device, home pages are more about functionality, and less about content now, i.e. their main task is to help clients find what they are looking for. As a rule, a home page comprises a simple single-column layout for promotions and also lists of links to various website areas or product categories. You can also try adding the keyword search to your home page, as well as links to important registration forms for loyalty programs and promotional emails.
Website Navigation
Make sure there are navigation menus on most of your website pages. This will enable customers to easily move around the website with no need to return to the home page. Interestingly, most large e-commerce websites don’t display all of their navigation options at once. They prefer offering a balanced combination of the visual design of the navigation and the information architecture of their websites. Why not using their experience when you decide to launch your mobile website?
Suggested Search
Suggested search is also known as autocomplete or type-ahead. It is very convenient to shoppers since it displays potential results as soon as a user has typed into a few characters. Add one to your mobile website if you want to improve your customers’ shopping experience.
Search Results
There are two primary patterns used for displaying search results on mobile e-commerce websites. These include table display and grid display. Tables represent a thumbnail photo that comes with some basic information (product names and price) in a single compact row. On the contrary, grid display provides larger images with less descriptive information. Choose one of these patterns. You can also include buttons for finding an item in stores and adding them to a shopping cart. Customers will also appreciate it if you use special filters to let them narrow their search results based on attributes, like color, size and brand.
If you find this information useful, read our next post to learn how to increase sales using mobile e-commerce websites.
