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As mobile commerce becomes the latest technological wave that retailers must ride, website and web application performance monitoring tools and services expert, David Flower, shares best practices for negotiating its hazards

As mobile commerce becomes the latest technological wave that retailers must ride, website and web application performance monitoring tools and services expert, David Flower, shares best practices for negotiating its hazards

 

Macy’s chief executive, Terry Lundgren, issued a stark warning at the beginning of this year: stores that don’t support mobile shopping will lose favour with consumers.

 

David Flower, Compuware Gomez vice president, also pointed out Lundgren also remarked that young consumers in particular are demanding the ability to use their mobile phones to comparison shop and get additional product information. “He predicts that in the near future young consumers will abandon stores all together if they don’t support the use of mobile devices. Hard-hitting stuff if you’re a retailer that hasn’t yet joined the mobile revolution,” said Flower.

 

Depending on your point of view, he said this has the potential to be a great opportunity. However, there are a number of technology pitfalls that could scupper even the best-laid ‘m-commerce’ plans.

 

Meeting ever-higher expectations

 

“As mobile opportunities increase, so do customer expectations,” he continued. “Unfortunately many companies racing ahead with the mobile revolution are stumbling across a number of obstacles along the way to their goal: a consistent mobile web presence that satisfies customers and encourages business growth.”

 

Flower highlighted the most common mobile technology mistakes so RetailTechnology.com can avoid making them themselves:

 

1. Knowing your customers is the crux of everything

 

“Do you know your mobile customers – really?” he asked. “Without genuine insight you might be tempted, for example, to offer mobile users the regular website that works well with your desktop Internet customers. But most smart and feature phones cannot support the complex, high-bandwidth Flash and Ajax applications at the heart of your regular site. Further, your feature and content rich website can pose numerous usability and navigation issues on hand-held devices.

 

“Customers are going to access your website via their mobile device in the real world – their world. You need to understand what that world is before you offer a mobile website, application or SMS initiative that can succeed within it.”

 

2. Out of sight, out of mind

 

“As in, if your customers can’t find your mobile website, you’ve lost their business,” he explained. “At its most basic this means automated redirects that recognise mobile users and instantly leads them to the appropriate mobile content. And then when they reach the site ensure that you are providing content and functionality that supports what your customers are trying to achieve.”

 

3. Peaks and troughs

 

“It’s not good enough to be prepared for ‘ordinary’ business conditions. When your mobile site is overwhelmed by extraordinary activity, potential customers face unbearably slow load times and a very unwelcome message: ‘we’re currently experiencing high traffic volume. As a result we’re not able to process your request. Please try again.’ Will they? Not likely,” he added.

 

4. Great expectations

 

Mobile users expect to make sacrifices – in content depth and presentation – in exchange for any place, anytime convenience. But the one thing Flowers said they won’t sacrifice is speed. Over half (58%) of mobile phone users expect websites to load as quickly on their phones as on their desktops.

 

“With social media as a readily available, virtual loudspeaker disappointed customers are not content to suffer silently. Instead they’ll happily share their frustrations with (literally) millions of other social media users, slamming your brand and your revenues.”

 

5. You don’t see your mobile service from your customer’s perspective

 

“It’s too easy to feel warm and cosy behind the comforts of your firewall where everything from web servers to load balancers appear to be running okay,” he added. “But that’s not how your customers see things at all. The service they receive (or not) comes at the end of a complex mobile Web application delivery chain that includes major ISPs [internet service providers], third-party services, content delivery networks, local ISPs, mobile carriers, mobile devices and more. Problems at any point in this chain will result in frustrations your customers may experience.

 

“As many as two-thirds of all performance failures occur outside the firewall,” he stressed. “Yet, no matter where the problems arise, the blame – and the consequence – will fall on you. That’s why you need to ask the kind of questions that expose your mobile performance the way your customers experience it:

- What do customers want from your mobile service?

- Where do customers access your service?

- How do customers use your service?”

 

Flowers concluded: “There is no doubt that mobile will play a key role in shopping in the future (and is already doing so). Whether it will have as big an impact on young consumers’ attitudes to shopping remains to be seen. Whatever the future holds, businesses looking to exploit the full marketing power of the mobile Web must leverage best practices and put performance management squarely at the top of their to-do lists.”