8 Ways To Improve Your Mobile Customer Experience This Holiday Season

In 2016, mobile accounted for over 30% of holiday shopping. On Black Friday alone, that number was over 40%. Though mobile ecommerce hasn’t kept pace with mobile traffic as a whole, more and more consumers are turning to their phones and tablets first, not just for pre-purchase research but for the entirety of their shopping experience. All these recent trends beg the question, “Is your brand ready to win consumers on mobile this holiday season?”

In the spirit of giving, here are some critical ways to optimize your mobile customer holiday experience this season:

Add a Mobile Holiday Theme

The holidays are a festive time and people love a little holiday cheer. What people don’t want is to be bombarded with that cheer the day after Halloween. To split the difference, definitely spruce up your app with some holiday spirit but take the advice of what 50% of those surveyed said and hold off on the decorations until after Thanksgiving.

Create Mobile Rewards Videos

People love holiday themed content, especially if it has positive and uplifting messages. In addition, according to YouAppi, 54% of consumers will watch rewarded video in exchange for points in a game or app. Offering incentives in exchange for watching a seasonally-themed branded video can be a lucrative tool for building awareness and loyalty as people shop online.

Optimize for “One Minute, One Hand Shopping”

While not the safest behavior, people are increasingly micro-shopping in those minutes spent in line at the grocery store or while waiting for the light to change. If your mobile store is difficult to browse, or if buttons or form fields require a pinch-to-zoom, you’ve already lost a customer. Best to make sure the UX of your mobile site and app are one-finger friendly and don’t require use of the keyboard.

Recreate Impulse Purchases In-App

For CPG brands especially, the transition to mobile shopping has been rockier. But this holiday season, bring the “candy bar at the checkout line” into your mobile app. Make festive, bundled, add-ons easy to throw in the cart at the last minute — mimicking the impulse buying with which consumers are familiar.

Offer Mobile-Exclusive Coupons — Christmas is the season of giving, but most shoppers are expecting the gifts to come their way. 69% of consumers admitthat special offers get their attention, with coupons and limited time deals providing the strongest power of persuasion.

• Mobile-only coupons offer a great chance to draw people into your app before providing them with a smooth and seamless in-app purchase experience to keep them coming back.
• Cross channel promotions can drive additional foot traffic using in-app coupons to be redeemed only in-store.
• Location Based Marketing remains a highly undervalued resource in utilizing mobile to convert local and in-store customers

Provide a Truly Omnichannel Experience

A seamless omnichannel experience is becoming less of a luxury and more of a necessity — especially when you consider that multi-channel shoppers shop more often and spend 250% more on average. While brick and mortar stores continue to see sales shifting to digital, there is still demand for mobile to in-store purchases. Having a mobile site or app that displays local inventory, offers in-store pick up and provides painless on-the-spot payment will encourage users to purchase from you rather than a “showroom” in store before buying it on Amazon. Syncing items added in a mobile cart to a desktop (or vice versa) can also aid in reducing cart abandonment and improving the omnichannel customer experience.

Safe, Streamlined Mobile Payment

60% of marketers believe that in-app purchases are the most effective purchase method while just 5% of consumers agree. Clearly there is a disconnect here. Customers are most likely to pay in-app if you offer safe, saved payment options such as PayPal or Apple Pay and don’t require manually entering a card number. Spending more for these integrations will reward you in customer satisfaction and repeat business.

Slim Down Page Size to Improve Load Times

As mobile page load time jumps from 1 second to 5 seconds, you can expect a 90% increase in bounce rate. To put that in perspective, the average mobile page in Feb 2017 took an astonishing 22 seconds to load. Beyond just optimizing images, avoid “featuritis,” keeping elements to a minimum and eliminate render-blocking JavaScript and CSS in above-the-fold content.

As more and more consumers look to mobile for their shopping, holiday themes, coupons and videos can all help your brand increase conversions. But if your app or mobile site doesn’t work properly and work fast, then no amount of festive promotion will save you. This holiday season be sure to provide the winter cheer, great deals and bug-free experiences that every mobile consumer is shopping for.