Mobile is changing the way customers purchase - everything

If you have a website 2 years ago less than 20% of your customers viewed it on their smartphones or tablet.

Today, it could be depending on your market sector and where your customers like to feed, in the region of 45%.

Over the next few years that number regardless of your marketplace will be close to 60%.

Mobile phone transactions in Kenya represent more than 40% of GDP

If like me,  you're a bit slow to making sure the mobile user experience is better than average,  the above numbers should be bit of a wake up call.

But being slow to change might have some advantages, because it appears that merely duplicating your current website to make it responsive to different platforms is not enough.

The latest research seems to indicate that larger screen use is prefered when customers are in the research or finding out phase of the buying cycle. So here you need good images, supported by detailed content and third party referrals.

On mobile and phablets it's clear that these are being used to make the purchase or that all important call for more information.

So on these platforms the images and copy has to be different and it's here that offers can be critical.

If you are able to use contextual data to follow prospects buying motivations, it's proved that social media advertising that clicks through to a mobile platform have a significantly higher success rate that a click throughs to a static site designed for desktop viewing.

Another factor which will change the dynamics even further is that as 4G becomes established and phones become almost throwaway accessories, the desire to sit in front of a screen to purchase will diminish. Customers will know they can use their daily commute or time at home to pay bills, personalise cards and buy gifts, restock product for their businesses, and keep in touch.

My task for my business over the next few months is to work out how my current site can migrate to other platforms so it's in a form that is quick and easy to use.

Your task hopefully is to sit back and be applauded for getting it so right last year - or perhaps not!

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net