Rating: Retail websites still not mobile friendly enough, says Juniper
Reacting to mainly poor recent experiences on the High Street, retailers will almost double the $28 billion annual spend by on mobile marketing expected for 2013 to $55 billion by 2015. This is one of the key findings in a report entitled, ‘Retail mCommerce: Mobile & Tablet Marketing, Advertising & Coupon Strategies 2013-2017′ from Juniper Research. The report also found that adspend on both tablets and smartphones is continuing to grow strongly. Retailers (most notably in North America and Western Europe) are migrating their own adspend to digital in general, and mobile in particular, Juniper says.
Whilst retailer engagement with mobile channels had increased dramatically, many retailers have still not fully optimised their sites for mobile browsing, registration or payment, the report’s author claims.
Report author, Dr Windsor Holden, warns, “If retailers truly want to maximise the mobile monetisation opportunity, then optimisation is critical.”
He continued, “If you are using mobile advertising for consumer acquisition, you need to push users to a site with which they can comfortably interact. Retailers that fail to respond to consumer demand will fall behind.”
Significantly, the reports highlights two important technologies – most often associated with mobile, which GoMobile News reports on regularly.
Retailers are developing additional distribution channels through the use of AR (augmented reality) and NFC (near field communication) technologies – as mobile becomes increasingly integrated into in-store retail strategies.
The report also found that the development of a mass tablet market had created new opportunities for brands seeking to enhance engagement with consumers.
A free whitepaper, ‘Mobile Marketing ~ Retailer Therapy’, is available to download from the Juniper web site here. Further details of the full report can be found here.
