Is Your eCommerce Website Mobile-Ready? And Why Does It Matter?

As an eCommerce business owner, have you ever wondered what is the most crucial factor that affects your brand’s visibility? To be honest, the issues that affect your brand's visibility might not stem from one source and could comprise several factors. Research has shown that users tend to avoid a website if it has a poor outlook or they had a bad experience using it, even if it is once.

You must be wondering how can ensure the users get the best experience every time? Well, it might not be humanly possible, but you can ensure the problem is never from the user interface. And the best way to cover the loopholes is first to build a mobile-first design for your website.

Going by its name, a mobile-first approach builds mobile-compatible designs for your website before other devices or screen compatibility. Why would anyone want to do that? We will be addressing that later on in this post. Now, let us walk you through the types of mobile-first designs:

Different Types of Mobile-First Design

The classification of mobile-first design basically revolves around how these designs interact with mobile displays irrespective of the screen sizes, and we can group them into:

• Responsive web designs (RWD)

These designs are created with dynamism at their core. The appearance of the website adapts to the screen and adjusts to its specifications. These designs are smart and responsive and are meant to cater to user behavior, giving them similar experiences irrespective of the device type.

• Progressive advancement

While RWD adapts to different screens smartly and responsively, the progressive advancement design takes a different approach, where a mobile-first or a lower grade browser serves as the building block. Other versions for other devices and screen compatibility are also created, and in these designs, the user gets different experiences on different devices.

• Graceful degradation

Unlike the progressive advancement designs, graceful degradation is a design approach that tends to adopt a mobile-first design for the newest browsers, but at the same, tries to deliver a functional experience for older browsers, even though these web applications may not function optimally.

Why Should You Go for A Mobile-First Design?

Several trends in the digital space make it difficult for eCommerce brands to discerning which would add value to their business, and that hesitation applies to mobile-first design. The answer to the question occurs in multiple folds:

• Increased Use of Mobile Devices

It is no longer news that the world has become a global village. Information is at our fingertips faster than any other generation. And also, everyone has become so dependent on their mobile devices. The number of mobile device users is a statistic that is ever increasing and will keep increasing.  Corresponding to that, brands must cater to the experience of this user base.

• Mobile-Friendly Policy

With the continuous increase of mobile users, Google announced that website owners who want to appear top in Google search engines should optimize their websites to mobile-first designs. You may wonder why Google took the step. Well, it was simple. Google is the most used Internet search engine, and most of its users use mobile. To optimize their user experience, they needed websites listed to have pages compatible with mobiles. This mobile-friendly policy made everyone seek the importance of mobile-first designs.

• Increased User Experience

User experience has become a crucial part of the purchase journey, and businesses need to avoid anything that could jeopardize that experience. The use of mobile-first design helps your web developers to maximize space and get creative with each webpage. Therefore, your website is free from unnecessary jargon and focuses on your conversion targets.

What Are the Benefits of Mobile-First Design for eCommerce Brands?

We have covered why eCommerce businesses opt for a mobile-first experience on their web platforms, but what do they stand to gain from taking a mobile-first approach? Well, we have outlined some of the benefits. Let’s check out.

1. Develops a Good Brand Image

Perhaps, the most important thing for your business is how your brand is perceived by the extended community. You want people to talk about your brand positively, and you also want good reviews and referrals. There is nothing that showcases a brand better than easy accessibility.

If a potential consumer needs to follow some protocols like using a desktop or iPad to get the best from your website, then they would be discouraged from the on-set. A mobile-first design gives your customers ease of accessibility and your brand a good image and also positive reviews.

• Increase Consumer Experience 

The consumer experience determines if users would come back to your brand and even make positive referrals. If they have issues loading your images because they are too heavy for the mobile, you can be assured they are not coming back. Using mobile-first ensures your users get a delightful experience across all devices, which makes users randomly want to visit your website and just window shop. Eventually, they would either make a purchase or refer someone who would. That is good business.

• High Mobile Conversion

While most brands desire plenty of page visits, the main purpose of having an eCommerce website is to make sales. Using a mobile-first design, the website is easier to streamline conversion targets. This makes referrals so easy as customers can easily exchange links and purchases, thereby improving conversion rates.

So what are you waiting for? Wondering which software-as-a-service to use when launching your mobile-first eCommerce website, don't stress. Think AllValue.

AllValue is a SaaS platform and the brainchild of Chinese merchant giants Youzan that offers mobile-first website templates and an online page builder to eCommerce brands. Take advantage of our unique product offerings and a 15-day free trial to access the platform's full functionality!

Start your 90-day free trial with AllValue at: https://allvalue.com/en!