UK retailers prepared for m-commerce takeover

Friday, August 8, 2014 - 11:04 by Paul Tissington

More and more consumers are shopping online from smartphones and tablets, which means that retailers are scrabbling to make sure that their websites and platforms are optimised for those using portable devices.

The UK has always been an e-commerce innovator, so it is perhaps unsurprising to see that a new study from Idealo has found that British retailers are actually outdoing their European counterparts when it comes to preparing for the m-commerce takeover.

Eighty six per cent of businesses offering shopping online in the UK have been found to offer either a mobile-optimised site or a dedicated smartphone app, through which purchases can be made, according to analysts.

This is significantly ahead of France and Spain, which sit in joint second place for m-commerce uptake, with 74 per cent of retailers keeping up with this emerging marketplace.

Italy is far less in tune with the rise of m-commerce, as just 50 per cent of its retailers have mobile sites or apps that facilitate shopping.

The study not only looked at the m-commerce industry as a whole, but also considered the approaches taken by retailers when it comes to courting smartphone and tablet users.

Almost three quarters of the companies covered in the UK have deployed a dedicated m-commerce site which is kept separate from their desktop domain, while retaining the majority of the features. Meanwhile, nine per cent have embraced responsive site designs, meaning that the desktop site can automatically detect when someone is visiting it from a portable device and adapt the interface automatically to suit this scenario.

Responsive sites may represent a smaller portion of the market at the moment, but they are arguably a better choice for retailers, as they give consumers a more consistent online shopping experience.

See the original blog  here.