Despite what is almost a universal understanding of the importance of optimizing websites for viewing on mobile devices, nearly one-quarter of the top retailers in the United Kingdom are not yet mobile-ready.
The digital commerce experts at Skava have just published the results of its annual “UK Retailer Mobile Optimization” report, which indicates that despite the surge in mobile traffic, which now accounts for nearly 20% of all e-commerce traffic, a quarter of the top 100 UK retailers have yet to optimize their e-commerce websites for mobile devices.
Although, this is a 26% increase on the 50% of UK retailers who had optimized for mobile by March 2013, UK retailers still lag behind the US, where 100% of the top US retailers have optimized.
“In Europe, some retailers are still arguing the importance of mobile as a significant source of revenue, yet leading UK retailer Argos generated £400 million in mccomerce last year, accounting for 10% of overall ecommerce revenue. The increase in ecommerce revenue overall is masking the loss of revenue through poorly converting mobile websites,” says Arish Ali, Skava’s CEO.
“Simply creating a mobile website is no longer efficient, but retailers must build mobile optimized websites with a conversion-first approach,” Ali adds. “The launch of a mobile website is not the end of a retailer’s mobile strategy, but just the beginning. Like e-commerce websites before them, they require constant updates based on analysis of user behavior to create a seamless shopping experience.”
