The Top Mobile eCommerce Tips for Growing Your Shopify Brand

The rise of mobile devices in online purchases has been nothing short of meteoric in recent years. For direct-to-consumer (D2C) e-commerce businesses, jumping on board with this trend represents a massive opportunity for growth.

According to Statista, mobile phones accounted for 50.81% of website traffic worldwide in Q3 2020. In the US, mobile devices account for two thirds of all dollars spent on e-commerce — and by the end of 2021, the figure is expected to reach nearly three quarters. This is a whopping 367% increase in mobile ecommerce revenue from 2016. 

As a D2C business owner, it is crucial to understand this momentum and how to capitalize on it. Below we look at 4 ways you can use mobile to gain and retain customers, create better value for them, and provide better opportunities for upsells:

1. Have a mobile-friendly site.

Having a mobile-friendly site means your customer can visit, browse, and purchase using only their mobile phone. “Mobile-friendly” means your site is as easy to use on a mobile phone as it is on a desktop computer. 

This beginning-to-end mobile functionality encompasses several different elements of your site:

• Design
• Ease of navigation
• Layout
• Responsiveness 
• Page load time
• Overall user experience
  

Converting customers on a mobile device has traditionally been difficult due to both physical and mental friction, according to Neil Patel. Mobile devices have an inherent set of limitations that a mobile-friendly site must account for. 

Ensure your e-commerce site’s checkout process is as easy as possible to complete on a mobile device’s web browser. This gives you a high competitive advantage. That means as few input forms as possible and image/data optimization to keep lag at an absolute minimum. 

Page load time plays a particularly important role — especially since desktop-optimized sites may take far longer to load on a mobile device. A recent study by Think With Google found that mobile bounce rates increase from 32% to 90% when load time increases from 3 seconds to 5 seconds. Similarly, conversions decrease with more elements like images, text, and titles on a webpage — an increase from 400 to 6000 elements results in 95% fewer conversions. 

Smartrr stands apart in that our membership portal is mobile-friendly. This means customers can easily manage subscriptions via the portal on their phone without requiring you to invest in expensive web development. This means fast load times, attractive design, streamlined input forms, and industry-leading user experience from beginning to end.

2. Leverage text/SMS marketing.

With text/SMS marketing, it is easier than ever to target and reach your customers. A recent survey showed a particular eagerness to interact with brands through text — within the past year, two-thirds of consumers report having signed up for SMS marketing from their favorite brands, and three-quarters preferring it for surveys, deliveries, and promotions. It’s got a good rep, too; 77% of consumers report a positive association with SMS marketing as a practice. 

Some staples of text message marketing include:

• A welcome message after subscribing to SMS
• Special offers, discounts, and sale announcements
• Reminder to resume with an abandoned cart
• New product and back-in-stock alerts
• Shipping reminders and transaction updates
  

Far from being an optional piece of added value, text marketing is now a major revenue channel for brands. The open rate for SMS dwarfs that of email by a factor of nearly 3, with an average conversion rate of 45% for an SMS marketing campaign. 

Part of the power of SMS text marketing lies in the fact that it brings messaging straight to the customer’s eyes — a text notification is perhaps the most actionable alert a person can receive. On average, a person responds to a text in 1/60th the time it takes to respond to an email. 

Text messaging is a highly effective strategy for brands to increase revenues and improve their bottom lines. Companies like PostScript have seen a large rise in recent years as businesses are waking up to customer demand for text marketing. At Smartrr, we are integrated with text marketing to help you make the most out of your outreach. 

3. Let them manage their order through text.

One thing customers love to know is when their items are getting shipped out. This is truer than ever during and after the pandemic, which has slid shipping toward the front of consumers’ minds and made communication around shipping a greater talking point. 

The following are excellent ways to reach out to customers through text:

Order confirmation

Sending an order confirmation text personalizes and acknowledges each customer’s purchase, letting them know you’re working on their order without making them open their email. 

Reminder of shipment

Whether you’ve been hit with unexpected delays or everything’s going out smoothly, customers appreciate knowing when their orders are expected to ship. This is also an upsell opportunity, as explained below.

Order management

Whether it comes as part of an order confirmation, a shipment reminder, or a separate text, SMS creates the opportunity for customers to manage their orders with less friction than ever before. By entering a number, your customer can cancel, skip, or change their order — for instance, “Text 1 to cancel, text 2 to skip,....” 

Herein lies a fantastic opportunity for upsells. Got a new flavor or product in the lineup? Send your customers a text allowing them to switch or add it to their upcoming order with a simple, quick text response. 

Smartrr is a mobile-friendly, text-savvy recurring revenue engine

With Smartrr, you can bring smart functionality to your online D2C shop — with complete mobile-friendliness and text integration included. 

Turn customers into loyal subscribers with a streamlined checkout on their phones. Take advantage of our integration with SMS marketing to stay on their radar. Dazzle them with text-based order management, including the opportunity to cancel, skip, change, or add to their order with a simple text response. 
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Learn more about Smartrr’s smart recurring revenue management here.