As the smartphone industry continues to churn out devices with better capabilities and powerful features, mobile traffic was always bound to exceed the traffic from desktops. And it should come as no surprise that the ecommerce industry is affected by these trends. Shopify’s own report from 2014 shows that they reached this point even earlier than Google officially announced this for global traffic.
What this means for your online store is that you can no longer ignore your mobile visitors as it’ll mean potentially losing out on a lot of revenue. Google also ranks mobile-friendly websites higher than others. If you have a lower score in your mobile friendly test, your store will not show up among the top results.
This is why it’s imperative to cater to your mobile visitors as well. How? Well, here’s a couple of ways to get started with.
Progressive Web Apps (PWAs)
This is the next big thing for mobile web. And you’ll soon understand why. Progressive Web Applications are incredibly powerful as they combine the best of both worlds — mobile apps and the web. Simply put, imagine them as a website that acts and feels like a mobile app.
Here’s a few reasons why your store needs a PWA:
- App installation: Installing an app from the Google Play store requires you to jump through quite a few hoops. But adding a PWA to the to your home screen requires just one click with the bonus of a lightning fast installation.
- App like features: PWAs give your website app-like capabilities. Offline use? Check. Home screen access? You’ve got it! Full screen usage? Of course! And there’s a lot more where that came from.
- Improved performance: PWAs offer better performance than native apps. Also, they require less data to load compared to native apps.
- Push Notifications: This is one of the most powerful features of PWAs. The ability to re-engage your users and drive more traffic to your store is critical for increasing conversions.
Push Notifications
Similar to PWAs, web push notifications have been gaining traction in the e-commerce industry as the go-to method of communicating with customers. In late ’90s, when email first started gaining momentum in the e-commerce industry, it proved to be a game changer. But with its widespread usage across all sectors, it has started losing its effectiveness, especially while trying to communicate important or time-limited information.
Enter push notifications. They are the next revolution for e-commerce. Here’s how they have the upper hand over other forms of marketing (including email):
- Needs just one click: As soon as your store visitors click ‘Allow’ on the browser prompt for receiving notifications, they become your subscribers
- Quick: Sending out a notification to your subscribers takes just a couple of minutes.
- Effective: Owing to their ability to grab attention, push notifications have significantly higher open and click rates compared to emails.
- Automation: Apps like PushOwl have automated notifications as well, where subscribers receive notifications based on their actions on your store, like abandoning their cart, subscribing to price drop or back in stock alerts, etc.
Push notifications have proven to be an incredibly powerful tool for driving customer engagement and increasing sales. Done right, you’ll soon notice increased traffic to your store, be able to re-engage your past visitors and earn more from sales.
Conclusion
Mobile traffic has exceeded that from desktops. And this width is going to keep growing in the future. PWAs combined with push notifications have the ability to propel your store miles ahead of your competition, by giving the same attention to your mobile visitors as well.
Well, what are you waiting for?!