Report finds that just 37 percent rank their mobile experience as excellent.
Mobile is the wave of the future for retail, and the retail industry has seemingly always been ahead of the curve when it comes to mobile innovation and adoption. In 2015, mobile commerce accounted for 30 percent of all US e-commerce, and US retail e-commerce spending is projected to grow to nearly $482 billion by 2018. But a new study has found that while retailers understand the value of a great mobile experience for their customers, the majority are not confident in their mobile offerings.
The user experience can make or break a company when it comes to interacting with its customers. A poor user experience can cripple even the most useful mobile capabilities, frustrating and even driving away customers, a dangerous occurrence in today’s highly competitive retail marketplace.
The State of the Mobile Experience Report reveals that 91 percent of retailers currently have a website and 84 percen thave a mobile app. Yet, just 37 percent of retail decision makers rank their mobile experience as 9 or above on a 10 point scale.
The study, conducted by industry-leading digital transformation firm, PointSource, also revealed that over half of retail leaders (54 percent) are struggling to integrate mobile strategy into their overall marketing strategy, and 48 percent say slow page load times are a troubling recurring issue. And one quarter (24 percent) said a lack of internal resources, such as staffing, remains a significant barrier to mobile implementation. Retailers need to refocus on making the right technology choices and properly implementing and integrating these new capabilities with their existing systems or risk losing their customers.
Retailers also face challenges uniting their internal marketing and IT departments, leading them frustrated as they struggle to find ways to bridge inter-organizational gaps and drive alignment across all lines of business.
Further, respondents cited a malfunctioning app or website as a company limitation (28 percent), and 68 percent stated that they do not track app opens or loyalty metrics, and are thus losing out on a potential wealth of consumer information when it comes to mobile usage. Retailers thus have an opportunity to further enhance the user experience with applied mobile analytics.
And yet, companies also realize the necessity of improving their mobile policies. On average, the study found that 91 percent of companies reported plans to invest in mobile in 2016, and of those, 86 percent will spend more than $100,000. Further, mobile remains a top priority for the coming years. Almost 7 in 10 (69 percent) of respondents ranked mobile as an eight or above on a ten point scale in terms of importance over the next three years.
The State of the Mobile Experience study surveyed nearly 300 key influencers and decision makers across retail, insurance, finance and supply chain industries.
Retail’s ability to engage, convert and retain customers on mobile will be dependent upon their commitment to improving and mastering the right user experience. The retail industry need to adopt innovative technologies like in-store geolocation, for example, which is currently the least used form of customer engagement (22%). And yet, despite its low use rate, 61 percent of the retailers who currently use it reported a positive user engagement, suggesting a clear opportunity for successful implementation of this technology.
