Your e-commerce store is up, but it’s not generating the kind of traffic you need to drive sales. One of the most important factors in growing your online success is your digital marketing strategy. If you are wondering why responsive web design matters for e-commerce, then read on.
Which factors are important for e-commerce success?
The most important factors for e-commerce success are: 1) product, 2) marketing, 3) web design, 4) user interface, and 5) shipping. At a high level, these are the things that have to be done well for a business to have a chance at success.
1) Product & pricing – Base on this, it’s important to understand that a lot of online stores try to generate sales through various means. It is important to choose your product and sell it in the category that is closest to your target audience’s hearts. It’s best to choose a product from a popular category that offers a good amount of products and get multiple bids from buyers searching for those same products.
2) Competition level – With that product selection in mind, it's highly important to know how much of an online store’s audience is in the market and where the competition is, therefore knowing how much effort you should put in to gain an upper hand over the competition. A good rule of thumb would be the “true” market share of all companies interested in the product you’re marketing. If your online store has 200–500% of the total market share you’d expect your e-commerce competitor to have, then it’s time for you to strengthen your position in the market etc. This guide to E-Commerce Competitor Analysis can tell you a lot more.
3) Promotion/Incentives – Expectations in marketing on the online stores are usually high! We all want to get more sales; it is important to keep those expectations in perspective. For example, by pricing your product low, you could be pushing users to find alternatives. Furthermore, giving quick free trials can be very useful if users might lose interest in your product soon after the trial period. Furthermore, a balance needs to be found in your promo incentives as that can affect customer retention.
4) Product Videos – Consistently using product videos is an effective way to drive purchase to your product page.
What are the benefits of responsive web design for e-commerce sites?
Responsive design is a web design approach aimed at crafting sites to provide an optimal viewing and interaction experience the broadest and most diverse range of devices and screen sizes. It is also considered to be a practice that is future-friendly and sustainable. It is one of many web design techniques that can be considered an evolution of the practices known as "web standards".
McFarlane and Bolton, Basic Principles of responsive web design
Responsive web design eliminates the need to send visitors to multiple different images, JavaScript calls, and serve different load times depending on the device. All the content seems to load together in the Internet browser’s memory on a single page that depicts a single product with a single design and with different user interface patterns.
How does it work?
First you create a single page of web content that uses dynamic serving technology. For mobile the formula is:
An HTML document with one or more images, JavaScript, and/or ztags
Content-based Ajax or similar technology calls that dynamically deliver content to view based on predefined conditions
Underlay a mobile friendly web design.
Underlying this technology is a JavaScript library, which can be used to alter elements, such as fonts and color, dynamically based on user interaction or other parameters. By changing the underlying JavaScript, you can have an impact on how users will interact with your site.
Responsive design solves the problems with the classic "click-wheel-dragging-drop" method of web development. This method was designed as an ideal solution in the 90’s to provide an easy and intuitive browsing experience using a browser that could handle different screens. However, this method is now considered old school and no longer helpful; for instance, Amazon’s architecture solves many of the issues associated with this traditional method of building a website (also known as a frame-less website).
The dynamic page model on Amazon’s AR Shop serves both desktop and mobile visitors to the same page.
It is clear that it matters a great deal if your store is supposed to appear on desktop first, or if it’s supposed to appear on mobile first.
How to use responsive web design in your e-commerce strategy?
The most important thing about responsive design is that it allows your website to appear the same across all devices. If you have a responsive design, your website will change to fit the size of the screen it is being viewed on. If you have a separate mobile site, the mobile site will only change based on the mobile device’s screen size, not the entire device. The result: Your e-commerce site doesn't need to change based on the size of the device, and it doesn't need to be one giant ugly beast. Pros of a Responsive E-commerce Website: Responsive design allows your website to appear to people all over the world, regardless of age, size, or computing capabilities. Faster and more stable site. You should be aiming for a website that loads in under a second, is easy on the computer eye-track, and renders correctly per each and every browser variation. Good for ads. Since your site appearance and user experience will change based on the screen size and resolution of the user, it's necessary for you to have ads on your site to pay for the bandwidth cost, and for you to effectively monetize your visitors through AdSense, affiliate revenue, and any other possible means. It's not just for users Disadvantages of a Responsive E-commerce Website: Your ad design, and the ads on your site, will not be optimized. From an ad view-rate standpoint, responsive sites are like 60% seeing ads on the left half of the page and 30% seeing ads on the right half of the page. Which is better? Responsive sites are more expensive to host and maintain, but they pre-render your ads on a per device basis. This allows your ads to appear before the page is ready, which may reduce your costs of online advertising. You rely much more heavily on paid search for your conversion funnel. According to Jumpshot, 75% of people in 2018 will use paid search to find products online. According to Jumpshot, that number is still 20% today.
Why is free responsive website builder so important for your e-commerce business?
You can create amazing e-commerce websites by using free responsive website builder. The free responsive website builder is the best way to create responsive e-commerce website.
Google’s mobile-first indexing has knocked websites off their feet. Google is currently redefining what a good website is by focusing on user experience. With Google’s focus on delivering a simple, optimal mobile experience, it’s important that you’ve already set the right vision for your online business.
But what is “mobile-first” exactly? If Google can render your website as fast as possible for users, then it is optimizing for the users. If this is not the case, then you have two choices.
Option 1: Make your website “mobile-friendly” (emphasis on the word “mobile)
With an “optimized” responsive website, your users will land on a page correctly, faster. The users will feel valued and your website will become more popular. However, this is an expensive option and is branded responsive design. If your current responsive site is built “over the top” with bricks and mortar assets, then this option is not sustainable for your business.
Option 2: Build a desktop version of your website
This option is viable if you are having any issues porting your current responsive site to a desktop site. In this option, you will maintain the responsive elements, but these desktop elements will be designed in a way that users can read, navigate around, and fully engage on your site. Desktop versions can be called "flexible," “responsive,” or “dynamic” websites. Since the pages will be virtual, the focus will be on the user experience.
Optimizing your store for mobile devices will require your biggest investment, and that’s where the power of responsive web design comes into play. There are a few different ways you can optimize your store for mobile devices.
Conclusion: When you have a responsive website, you have many more options for marketing including pay per click, search engine optimization, social media marketing, and email marketing. The right digital marketing strategy can mean the difference between success and failure in your online business.
If you have a responsive website, you have many more options for marketing including pay per click, search engine optimization, social media marketing, and email marketing. The right digital marketing strategy can mean the difference between success and failure in your online business.
Despite having a responsive online store, you still need to market your store using traditional channels. You can’t just stop using other free tools like Facebook, Twitter, or Google to target advertising to your customers. You still need to try targeted remarketing to attract those people back. Not to mention you will need to have good conversion rate data measuring the effectiveness of your purchase paths, and repeat advertisement.
Non-responsive vs. responsive
Non-responsive stores are usually built with an HTML to CSS code approach, where the code sits in the bottom part and is very hard to change. This can be costly and time-consuming if you are reaching a lot of people with your store. This approach will probably not be long lasting as these sites get buried by bigger players in the online retailing space.
Responsive stores are built using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for all elements of the site. So, there are fewer things to change. No one likes to spend time and money on a website that doesn’t look that nice. Traditional advertising is still an important way to market your store, but it will not give you the same effect that responsive design will.
Key benefits of a responsive web design
Responsive website gives you several benefits that traditional stores lack:
Improved conversion rates
Speed
Any online store will spend more time and effort on optimizing their website to drive more conversions, but a responsive site allows you to minimize that effort and focus more on what customers find on the site instead of what happens inside the navigation and checkout flows.
Dynamic URLs are more dynamic
Consider this scenario. A customer stores his order in your order form.