Mobile devices are within reach 24 hours per day, unlike desktop computers which are anchored to the office, bedrooms, or study.
Mobile phones allow users to seek out products and services the very instant the need arises. They remember to buy flee control for the cat while on the train to work, so that’s when they connect to on-line pet supply shops.
Even though shopping on-line via cell phones still represents a relatively small percentage of total on-line sales, the numbers are growing rapidly, and will continue to do so while Telcos improve Internet speed and coverage, and mobile devices get faster and easier to use.
Therefore digital retailers would be crazy not to cater to the special needs of these small devices.
Shop Resolution
Of course developing separate shop templates for each of the many computer devices out there (iPhone, Android, Tablet PC, Desktop PC, etc.) is impossible for most small on-line retailers – the cost is too inhibitive.
The good news is that small business owners don’t really need to building multiple versions of their website because even though the user interface may vary (some use touch screen, others a mouse etc), the key difference is the screen resolution.
Desktop computers have a horizontal screen size of 1024 pixels or greater, mobile devices such as iPhones and Android have horizontal resolutions of 320 pixels or greater. This means that most web pages are 3 times the width supported by mobile phones (iPhones have horizontal resolution up to 920 pixels, but the text is then too tiny to read for many users).
Lower Resolution for Mobile Users
To make it easier for mobile users to read the contents of the website we need a version of the website which renders comfortably on a 320 pixel width phone.
There is too much competition on the Internet for a user to bother hanging around at a site that they can barely read when a better site is only a click away.
Business Reputation
Also consider that Search Engines will (if they don’t already) rank a website according to it’s support for mobile devices when a search has been conducted on a mobile device. So it’s possible your website will not even appear in the search results if it does not cater to mobile users.
Furthermore users may very well score down a business that has not bothered to consider their mobile needs. As consumers we are intuitively rank a company’s reputation based on issues such as this. We know that a company that is serious about their service will go to extra effort to ensure that all bases are covered.
Fewer Features is Better
Stripping out a lot of features of the full website is useful to make navigation easier. Also, let’s not forget that mobile users often use their phone single handed, and indeed pointing and clicking with a finger is not as precise as navigating with a mouse, so buttons must be larger and more spaced out.
