One of the big trends in the world today is mobile computing.
A lot of experts are focusing on how mobile might lead to an increase in sales.
That’s not really what’s happening.
For a business like Best Buy, creating a mobile website isn’t going to increase sales that much if it does at all. People might transition from buying in stores or via their desktop to purchase on a smartphone, but that’s simply changing channels. It’s not an increase in sales.
No, one of the major worries today for businesses is how to sell the same amount of stuff on smaller screens.
Catalogs to Computers to Smartphones
Think about the catalogs you used to receive in the mail. Maybe you still do, but you probably don’t get anything like the huge, 200-page Sears catalog anymore. There is no way to justify that much selling space for businesses.
The ecommerce world changed things. You didn’t need catalogs to get people to find stuff. You could put all the information online. Search made it easy for people to find things. You could set up your online store in the same way as a catalog and the screen was about the same size so you could fit all your selling text on the screen for people to read.
But mobile is different.
On a smartphone, it’s difficult for people to read lots of text. It’s difficult to discover things. There isn’t as much feature space. Search is more difficult.
If businesses want to sell a wide assortment of products they need to figure out how to do it on a mobile device.
Even a small business that has a service to sell has to figure out how to lead their visitor through the sales process on a smartphone.
I don’t know if I have the answer, but there are some things emerging that can make this happen.
Video
One important thing is online video. It’s really started to explode. People love it for a variety of reasons.
And I think video content could be a way for businesses to get people to discover lots of products while also doing a great job of selling individual items. A person doesn’t need a large screen to watch a video.
They can watch the video and get all the information they need about a product. There is no need for long product descriptions to read through or photo galleries to look at. A video can do that all.
And businesses with lots of product can have videos for every one of their products, but they can also do weekly videos or subscription videos where they feature new products and classic products to make sure visitors are seeing everything just like they would if they were to page through a catalog.
Voice Search
This one is interesting. I think it’s still in its infancy and I’m not sure how it will play out.
It’s hard to type searches on your smartphone. Saying something is easier, but it’s not perfect. The vocal recognition is not close to 100%. It’s getting better, but it’s not there yet.
And it’s weird to yell a search keyword into your phone when you’re sitting in the waiting room at the dentist.
Search has been such a big part of ecommerce that I find it hard to believe that it would ever go away. People need to find things. I think it might be some kind of vocal search instead of text search.
Mobile-First Responsive Design
Responsive design is a great tool. I like any business that starts with a mobile-first strategy especially if they’re selling to a younger audience.
With this approach you can really focus on how you can lay out your information so that you can make a sale.
People will still read text, but only if it’s easy to consume. They don’t want to have to squint. Responsive design solves this issue.
Social Media
Finally, social media could play a big role in how your business wins new customers and make sales.
I’m not really sure how this would work, but I think it will involve discovery in some way. People see what others are doing, buying and wanting and they in turn discover those things.
Social media is one of the biggest activities that people do on their phone. They’re always on social media.
It makes sense that as the smartphone becomes the source of the Internet for people that commerce will involve more social aspects.
Conclusion
The screen size is shrinking. It’s going to lead to challenges for your business.
If you have lots of products you’ll have to figure out a way for people to discover it all.
And even if you sell one service you’ll have to figure out a way to get people to go through your entire sales process on a small screen.
Hopefully the things above will get you started in your thought process.
The change hasn’t come yet, but it is coming.
