Last Black Friday, a record-breaking 48% of online sales and 78% of web traffic came from smartphones.
It’s key that brands should focus on optimising their websites or apps for smartphone users in the run-up to Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Don’t alienate potentially half of your customer base, as your sales and revenue will drastically suffer.
We’ve broken down everything you need to know about the role mobile shopping has on Black Friday and Cyber Monday and why you should prioritise optimising your business for the influx of mobile shoppers.
Convenience and Accessibility
Simply put, one of the main advantages of mobile shopping is convenience and accessibility for the customer. Not having to wait in long queues at the checkout is something we all want when we’re simply buying a new top or a cap.
With smartphones, people can shop from anywhere and at any time. Network connectivity seems to be the only obstruction. Still, in this day and age, with so many shops and restaurants offering free WiFi, it’s fairly easy to get a connection if you’re in the city or even smaller towns.
So, with that being said, ensure your website can accommodate this incredibly large group of people. Don’t tease them with an incredible discount if your website isn’t optimised for smartphone users.
Mobile Apps and User Experience
Nowadays, most of the big-name (and even some of the more independent) shops have apps that let customers interact with them from the palms of their hands.
One of the main benefits of shopping apps is they provide a seamless and user-friendly shopping experience. Customers use them because they’re easy.
If you have your own app, make sure it’s running at its smoothest for the period. Improve the UI, app speediness, checkout simplicity, and other features to make the customer want to shop with you over anyone else.
Mobile-Exclusive Deals
Following on from mobile apps, offering exclusive deals to users who use those apps is a great way to encourage customers to purchase.
Sending a notification to their devices to let them know a “mobile-exclusive” deal is waiting for them will certainly pique their interest.
Not only that, but ensure the homepage of your app showcases the mobile-exclusive deal front and centre. Don’t hide it away. Scream about it because what’s the point in the deal if you won’t market it?
Mobile Payment Options
The influx of mobile payment options has shifted the mobile eCommerce market to a place it can never return from.
Apple Pay, Google Pay, and mobile wallets offer customers a seamless checkout experience. With the added benefit of a customer’s information being auto-filled, users can check out in less than a minute.
There are reportedly 507m Apple Pay users and over 150m Google Pay users worldwide. People use these mobile payment options, so let them continue to use them when they visit your website or app.
Mobile Security and Privacy
Enhanced security is a crucial advantage of using mobile payments, and each payment boasts plenty of security features to protect sensitive financial information.
Tokenisation is a key feature which essentially generates a unique token or account number for each card that’s added to a mobile wallet. The actual card details are never stored on the card or transmitted during purchases, so if someone were to intercept a transaction, they’d have no way of knowing the actual number of the card being used.
As mobile devices become more advanced, so too do the mobile payment security features used on the device. Many mobile phones nowadays have facial recognition technology and utilise this for all online payments.
There are many other useful security features, including two-factor authentication, data encryption, remote card locking, payment notifications, and geolocation authentication.
Push Notifications
You’d be lying if you said you didn’t pick up or even glance at your phone when a notification comes through.
Brands know people get excited about push notifications, so leverage them to their own benefit. They create a sense of urgency and FOMO, making the recipient feel as though they’ll miss out on the exclusive deal if they don’t click the notification there and then.
Brands can also utilise customers’ shopping data to send personalised push notifications. If you’ve spent a bit of time searching for shoes on a shopping app, you could receive a notification to say those particular shoes are low in stock, and you need to act fast to ensure you don’t miss out.
During the sale season, push notifications can be used to alert customers about flash sales, limited-time offers, restocked items and much more. Ultimately enhancing the sense of urgency and excitement.
Mobile shopping has revolutionised the way consumers interact with brands on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Convenience, accessibility, and personalised experiences provide customers with unlimited opportunities to shop, and the advancement in mobile technology will only grow these opportunities further.
