Best m-commerce checkouts chosen

Friday, September 26, 2014 - 12:41 by Paul Tissington

This week Econsultancy has identified 10 retailers as offering consumers the best possible experience when they decide to carry out safe shopping online from a smartphone, paying particular attention to the ease with which the checkout process occurs.

Fashion chain, Topshop, is praised for the design of its checkout service, which is both simple enough to avoid confusion while also featuring useful interface elements, like a progress bar so that users know how much more they have to do to get their order processed.

John Lewis is noteworthy for allowing users to call the firm directly via a button that is embedded on its checkout pages, which could be very useful for those who prefer to do things over the phone.

Debenhams comes very close to offering the same experience to both desktop and mobile users, since its m-commerce checkout integrates things like a postcode finder, to simplify the delivery process, as well as making the assumption that your delivery address is identical to that of your billing address, to save even more time.

H&M may require users to register before they can place an order, unlike Topshop, which has a guest checkout option available, but it wins out when it comes to the amount of explanation which is provided when you make a purchase via safe shopping online.

And with all of these mobile sites you will find that the most consistent factor is the finger-friendliness of the interface. Since people will be using touchscreen devices to engage with the checkout it makes sense to beef up the buttons and remove any extraneous elements, so that people do not press the wrong things by accident.

Some retailers offer dedicated m-commerce apps for smartphones, but using mobile sites is still the most popular way to shop online while out and about.