in association with Build your ecommerce business PART 2: GOING 1. Getting Started 2. Going mobile 3. Using marketplaces 4. Promote MOBILE 5. Deliver 6. Convert 7. Retain & Expand 8. Legal TAMEBAY DIY ECOMMERCE GUIDE BOOK CHAPTER 2 Time to mobilise PART 2: GOING MOBILE What to ? your business What is mobile commerce INTRODUCTION Why is mobile commerce Depending on whose figures you look at somewhere between 40 and 60% of important ecommerce traffic these days comes from mobile – and as smartphone and How to take ecommerce tablet use outstrip more traditional PCs, this is only going to extend. mobile www.tamebay.com/diy-ecommerce-guide Mobile form factors If you are an Apps verses M-web for existing online small business retailer or looking to set up an online WHAT WE LEARN retail business ● What is mobile you can’t ● Why it matters ignore mobile ● Form factors ● Apps verses M-Web If you are an existing online retailer or looking to set up an online retail business you can’t ignore mobile. Over the next six sections we are going to JOIN OUR COMMUNITY guide you through what mobile means and why it matters, how to design for www.linkedin.com/ mobile, how to repurpose your existing content for mobile, how to ‘do’ mobile groups/8383093 https://tamebay.com/2017/09/what-do-we- payments, how to assess how mobile your business needs to be and, closing the twitter.com/tamebay mean-by-mobile.html circle, how mobile can help you create a true omni-channel eseller business. https://tamebay.com/2017/09/5-ways- retailers-can-get-better-at-mobile.html facebook.com/tamebay/ https://tamebay.com/2017/09/6-ways-to- ?ref=aymt_homepage_panel convert-on-mobile.html www.youtube.com/channel/ https://tamebay.com/2017/09/5-reasons- to-consider-a-mobile-first-e-commerce- UCLsYhZ7wvUeHwKV-6rnlH_A website.html 2 TAMEBAY DIY ECOMMERCE GUIDE BOOK CHAPTER 2 WHAT IS MOBILE AND WHY IT MATTERS Pretty much everyone has a mobile ‘phone’ in their pocket, but today mobile is inherently a portable computer that can also make What to ? calls and send texts. With this in mind, all that really differentiates mobile from ‘traditional’ PCs is that they use a different operat- ing system (OS) – that is the nuts and bolts that make it work. Here are several other key factors that make mobile special. How many mobiles are there in the world 1. Form factors What is a mobile form factor For starters mobile devices are usually quite small with a small screen and, crucially, smaller memories and small- What is a smartphone er amounts of RAM memory (the kind of memory needed to run ‘jobs’ in the device). Understanding that the screen size is small and that it can be both landscape and portrait, depending on how the device is held, is crucial What is a tablet when looking at how to mobilise your online offering. What is a tablet- smartphone hybrid 2. Devices What is a phablet Mobile devices also come in a variety of forms. Typically these can be classed as: RAM ● Smartphones and their slightly larger siblings the Phablet – part phone-part-tablet (think iPhone 6 Plus) – are essentially the key market for ‘mobile’ when thinking about m-commerce. They have the largest penetration and are used increasingly by consumers for shopping. And their use and penetration is growing. ● Tablets are often thought of as large smartphones, but in many ways they sit in a niche of their own: often being used in the home rather than in the street and having no connection to a phone network. They are also gener- ally not used for voice calls, though they are often a Skyping tool. The penetration of tablets is not rising at the rate of smartphones and tablet-based m-commerce is growing only slowly. However, they can’t be discounted when designing and implementing your mobile strategy – as you shall see. ● Tablet-PC hybrids are essentially PCs, relying largely on standard PC OS and incorporating just some of the id- JOIN OUR COMMUNITY ioms of a tablet such as touchscreens and some portability. They are typically thought of from an m-commerce www.linkedin.com/ point of view as being PCs, however, since the screen is removable (making it a tablet), then many of the other groups/8383093 factors considered in designing for mobile – such as portability, location and so on – do come into play. twitter.com/tamebay ● Watches and wearables – such as Fitbit and more – offer an intriguing insight into where mobile and mobile commerce may go in the years ahead but they aren’t there yet. That said, they tend to be tethered to a mobile facebook.com/tamebay/ device and so are merely, for now, alert devices for the main mobile device. However, we are already seeing ?ref=aymt_homepage_panel consumers starting to pay for things with Apple Pay on an Apple Watch so there is a role for them in retail. One www.youtube.com/channel/ to, if you pardon the pun, ‘watch’. UCLsYhZ7wvUeHwKV-6rnlH_A 3 TAMEBAY DIY ECOMMERCE GUIDE BOOK CHAPTER 2 ● Games consoles are intriguing. Many of them come with wifi and are connected to the web. Many of the are also starting to get their own app eco-systems and many of them are the way that some people connect to the web via their TV. Are What to ? they ‘mobile’? Not strictly speaking, but they are a different OS than PCs (and iOS and Android for that matter) but they can be used to shop for things. And so they are worth considering at some point in your mobilisation plan. You need to What are wearables look at where your traffic is coming from and assess whether games consoles are significant. ● Smart TV is a natural extension of games consoles: again they are not strictly speaking mobile, but they are different What are smartwatches again in terms of form factor, OS and interaction method (see below). And they too are starting to get their own app eco- Can I sell things on systems and, with the advent of Amazon Fire, Amazon Prime, Google Chromecast and Apple TV, are starting to work wearables at the cross roads of mobile, PC and TV commerce. When looking at developing a mobile strategy it is worth looking at Can I sell things on how that strategy can be tweaked or extended in the not too distant future to service smart TV shopping too. smartwatches 3. Interaction method The other area, which we have touched on above, where mobile is a distinctly different to traditional PC based m-com- merce is the touch screen interface. PCs use a keyboard and a mouse; mobile tends to let you prod, poke, swipe and scrunch to control what you do. And this has a profound impact on how you design or adapt your online presence for mobile. 4. Networks and location The other areas that single out mobile as being distinct from the e-commerce world of the PC is that the devices are often connected to the world through a variety of different networks and they move about so are being accessed in different places. Networks that mobile devices typically use range across wifi, 2G, 3G and 4G, each giving a different level of performance and down (and up) load speeds – all of which have to be taken into account when designing for mobile. JOIN OUR COMMUNITY Location, meanwhile, is a direct result of the networks listed above. Wifi is often used in more static endeavours – such as www.linkedin.com/ at home, the office, a coffee shop, on a train, at the airport or even increasingly on planes and trains – while 2G, 3G and 4G groups/8383093 are typically mobile operator networks to be found when out and about. All these networks and the fact that the device is being used in many different places – often for different things and at different stages of the shopping journey – is one of the twitter.com/tamebay key things to think about when designing for mobile, as we shall see. facebook.com/tamebay/ ?ref=aymt_homepage_panel 5. M-web and apps www.youtube.com/channel/ As well as being distinctly different to PC-based e-commerce, mobile commerce has another defining aspect: it works UCLsYhZ7wvUeHwKV-6rnlH_A in two different – though inter-related – ways: through what is often called ‘m-web’ (the mobile web) and through apps. 4 TAMEBAY DIY ECOMMERCE GUIDE BOOK CHAPTER 2 Understanding the difference is key also key to unlocking how you create and develop not only your mobile presence, but also your mobile strategy across your business. So what are they and why are they different? What to ? 6. Apps 2G Networks and Apps (short for Applications) are what most people immediately think of when you specifically talk about m-commerce. Many ecommerce retail brands have one and it has, for many been their first port of call when starting on their mobile strategy. 3G Networks and Apps are small software programmes that live ‘natively’ on the device and when activated load up a set of tools and services ecommerce that can exploit all that the phone has to offer. Back in the day when iPhone and apps were new, these apps contained all the 4G Networks and data and information they needed to run natively. These days they tend to be more of a shop window that is driven at the back ecommerce by the internet. 5G Networks and That said, now that phone memory is pretty limitless – or at least well into the high gigabyte range – apps are becoming ecommerce more important and useful again as they can be bigger and better programs that can deliver a really immersive experience.