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Customers keen to embrace mobile retail

Almost half (49%) of UK consumers have accessed a retailer’s website via their mobile phone, and a further 28% plan to do so in the future, according to research from analytics firm ForeSee.

The number of consumers visiting retail websites on their mobile has increased steadily since 2009 (23%) and 2010 (32%). At the same time, those who haven’t accessed a retailer’s website via their mobile and don’t plan to has been on the decrease, from 43% in 2009, to 35% in 2010 and in 2011 just 22% don’t plan to do so.

Despite the adoption of mobile into consumers shopping habits, shoppers are still not as satisfied with their mobile experience as they are with UK e-retailers. Traditional e-retail websites rated 73 on the study’s 100-point customer satisfaction scale, up one point from the year previous. Mobile sites customer satisfaction rated 70 in 2011, up 3 points since 2010.

“Given the widespread and growing usage of mobile websites, it is no longer acceptable for a retailer to have a substandard mobile site no matter how good their traditional site is,” says ForeSee chief executive Larry Freed. “If shoppers aren’t having a good mobile experience with a given retailer, they will simply go elsewhere.”

“Don’t be tempted to measure satisfaction by tracking sales, app downloads, or mobile site traffic,” says ForeSee senior director of mobile, media and entertainment, Eric Feinberg. “Customer satisfaction is the result of meeting a customer’s needs and expectations – the principles are the same regardless of the customer touch point. You can only find out about satisfaction by asking the customers themselves.”

Similar themes were echoed in research from EPiServer, which found that 14% of UK consumers rarely feel that a mobile website meets their expectations.

Jenni Baker, London