If you think mobile is the future, you’re completely mistaken.  

Mobile is the present reality for all eCommerce brands.

In the world today, a large part of e-commerce growth is driven by consumers using their mobile phones. According to Statista's Market Insights, mobile e-commerce sales reached $2.2 trillion in 2023. Not surprisingly, they make up to 60 percent of all e-commerce sales around the world.

The reality is that all customers love the convenience of shopping via phones — when they are commuting or lounging on a couch or just about to sleep; hence mobile e-commerce sales will grow.

Unfortunately, most eCommerce brands have a common complaint.

The conversion rate for mobiles is at 4.18% while desktops are at 6.08%. So how do you increase your numbers for a conversion rate that translates into more revenue?

Let’s show you how!

What is mobile conversion rate?

Mobile conversion rate refers to the percentage of visitors who complete a desired action (on mobile) by the total number of impressions, and then multiplying by 100.

Conversion rate = (Conversion / Total Visitors) * 100

These actions could include, making purchases, signing up for a newsletter, or filling out a form. The average mobile ecommerce conversion rate is 4.18%; which means 1 out of every 24 visits via a mobile device converts.

How can you improve your conversion rate on mobile campaigns?

If you are an eCommerce owner or marketer, you already know that when we run marketing and advertising campaigns most of the engagement or interaction comes from mobile devices. This means that giving mobile users the same route as that of desktop users would be quite foolish.

Here’s what we recommend instead:

1. Take traffic to your mobile site or the mobile app

“Optimize the first impression,” says Rahul Vij of Webspero Solutions. “In less than 5 seconds, you can tell people what your application does. In those few seconds, you can encourage visitors to download or confuse them to leave the page. Focus on creating the first impression.

If you have a new customer who has viewed your advertisement, and is not interested in taking the next step of action; ideally them to the mobile optimized website first.

Let them see your store without facing any obstacle. Why? If the customer is yet to experience your product, then the slightest friction of downloading an app and then viewing your product could discourage them. Instead, on the website, encourage them to download the app with a discount.

Most eCommerce brands spend too many resources trying to acquire new customers and ignoring their existing customers. But you need to have a plan for your loyal customers too.

Take them straight from the advertisement to the app or the Play/App store instead of the website. Since, they have already experienced your product, and want to buy it again, they will experience less friction in downloading the app; and they will be greeted with a better experience too. Make sure that the process is as streamlined as possible.

If possible, throw in a little something extra, if they start using the app. Loyalty programs, freebies or even in-app discounts can prevent uninstalls.

2. Retarget customers with push notifications

Once your customer is on the app, do you hope and pray for them to take out time and check out your products?

We hope and pray not.

Use a simple method that’s effective and super powerful: push notifications.

These are small messages that appear on your app or mobile website to nudge users into a certain action. This can be as simple as opening the app to check out a new product or a discount; or even a reminder for an abandoned cart.

“My best tip for improving mobile app conversions is to take care of your push or in-app notifications,” says Dan Bailey of WikiLawn. “You want to construct them so they’re informative and targeted to the user’s activity, but not intrusive. Too many notifications will ensure they turn those options off or just uninstall the app. It’s a delicate balance that requires a lot of data and testing to get right.”

Do this, and watch your conversion rates soar.

3. Offer in-app live chat support

Think about this, how many times have you abandoned carts just because you could not find the answers that you needed?

In the mobile app experience, live human interaction can solve for better conversion, simply by reducing confusion at the height of buying intent. According to data from Zendesk, customer satisfaction ratings for live chat are 85%, beating help center articles (83%), email support (82%), Twitter support (81%), and Facebook support (74%).

And both logically and intuitively this makes sense. Nobody likes to wait for an answer or drop an email to wait for a reply; when they can get one immediately. In app live chat support means people can stay in the flow of their task aka purchasing your product which means lower drop offs and higher conversion rate.

4. Improve the search experience by the customer

Expect your customer to be finicky. When you want the sound of ka-ching in your bank account; then you need to take multiple measures to give the best search experience for your prospective customer. Here’s how:

• Infinite scrolling is instinctive, especially on mobile and touchscreen devices specially because of TikTok & Instagram. To make it more functional use a ‘load more’ button, rather than multiple pages as the product list grows.
• Product recommendations on mobile eCommerce can create a beautiful shopping experience for your customer, while increasing the customer lifetime value for your company. On-page product recommendations show suggested items without making the visitor jump to a new page.Cross-selling tool & personalized recommendations all at one go.
• Another bonus could be an auto-complete search functionality. Typing takes more effort on a phone. With auto-complete in your site’s search bar, customers will be able to find products quickly, which helps users buy faster without getting distracted.

5. Improve your forms

For eCommerce businesses, forms are a smaller action that leads to a bigger action. i.e. a macro-conversion.

But, filling forms can be annoying.

Your team doesn’t need to know every single detail about your customer’s life before letting them purchase. Form fields must be a minimum and you should only ask for essential information that concerns payment and shipment.

Also, smaller screen space can be frustrating when having to type out every single letter. Using auto-complete or auto-fill from their saved browser cookies can help complete forms faster.

Do the hard work for your prospective customers, so that it can lead to better conversion rates.

6. Make it easier for your customer to pay

Now that sounds simple, right?

If we want more conversion, we want more people to press the purchase button and take their credit card out. But the mobile can be tricky.

The customer is almost convinced to buy but they can’t see the buy button because it is all the way up or below on the page. Instead of being pushy with multiple buttons you can use sticky add to cart buttons. As the customer keeps scrolling, they show up on the bottom of the page and stay there.

Now that they have clicked on the purchase button, make sure that you have enough and more options to pay. Sanem Ahearn of Colorescience adds, “Of the numerous ways to improve mobile app conversion rates, ease of payment is the most important. When a user is on your app and they find something of interest, having the ability to purchase with one or two taps will increase conversions tenfold.

Netbanking, cards and even e-wallet payment methods can help — the more the merrier!

Built-in payment options on mobile devices, (extra points if they are integrated as part of your app) can help. Seamless and secure mobile payments will be crucial in improving conversion rates.

Conclusion

Mobile e-commerce is going to get bigger, and so you can’t afford to stay out of the game. With these small adjustments, you can start increasing your conversion rate from mobile ecommerce. But if you need somebody to hold your hand, we got you.

Shopney has helped brands double their mobile conversion rates in less than 3 months.

Want to know how? Reach out to our team of Shopify AppCommerce experts today.