Advances in wireless technology increase the number of mobile device users and give pace to the rapid development of e-commerce using these devices. The new type of e-commerce, conducting transactions via mobile terminals, is called mobile commerce. Due to its inherent characteristics such as ubiquity, personalization, flexibility, and dissemination, mobile commerce promises businesses unprecedented market potential, great productivity, and high profitability.
More and more people used mobile phones and tablets to visit online stores than using computers. Looking at data from over 100,000 ecommerce stores that use the Magneto platform, we saw 50.3% of traffic coming from mobile (40.3% from mobile phones, 10% from tablets) and just 49.7% from computers. The rise in mobile phone traffic to online stores is partly being fuelled by the overall trend of social-fuelled discovery becoming a major marketing channel. So that you should build a Mobile e-commerce campaign right today for your online store.
Three current main Mobile e-commerce campaign
Currently, there are three way for your M-Commerce choice: Mobile application, Mobile website theme, Responsive website templates.
Mobile application
They can be run on the specific mobile device and they are coded just for that device. These applications usually can be downloaded from “app stores” like Google play or iOS App Store. This is the best choice when you need to access device’s hardware and settings.
The disadvantage of this way is that you would have to develop app for every platform such as iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone, tablets… And user would have to want to download it.
Mobile website theme
Mobile website has different code base and content for desktop and mobile. Hereby, it could offer completely different user experience for these two groups. But mobile website usually targets only one resolution, so you end up covering only small portion of visitor’s possible resolution.
- If you using Magento platform for your site. You can try Magento Mobile Theme from Cmsmart Marketplace, is a good one.
Responsive website templates
It serves the same code and the same content to all users, regardless of their platform. It uses fluid layouts, media queries and flexible images to adapt to every resolution. Smartphone, tablet, laptop, desktop, TV… The system automatically detects the devices so that whenever your customer access your online store via which devices it will switch to the suitable mode. You can finds a lot responsive templates here.
Each Mobile e-commerce campaign mentioned above both has its advantages and disadvantages. Both all of them have marketplaces where you can pick and choose additional functions to “bolt on” to your online store and choice depends on your requirements.
