Mobile Commerce Optimization: Designing Seamless Shopping Experiences for Post-Millenials

With online shopping demographics changing with each passing generation, modern brands are now looking to pivot more of their marketing resources toward Zoomers: one of the most important consumer groups to target. However, it’s not enough to just advertise to Gen Z shoppers. You also need to make sure your e-commerce site is mobile-optimized. 

But why should your e-commerce brand focus on mobile commerce optimization, and how can you provide seamless mobile shopping experiences for Gen Z consumers? Let’s answer both of these questions and more.

Why Does Mobile Optimization Matter?

Simply put, Gen Z shoppers are quickly going to become the most dominant online shopping demographic across all major markets.

According to recent statistics, about 32% of Gen Z consumers shop online at least once per day. In comparison, only 25% of Millennials do the same. Previous generations shop online even less, with around 15% of Gen Xers and only 7% of Baby Boomers buying something online once per day.

Because many Gen Z consumers do most or all of their shopping online, it’s also a no-brainer that a lot of that shopping happens via mobile devices. The pocket computers we all carry around are more than just social media devices. They’re great ways to do quick shopping online, such as right after seeing an expertly placed advertisement.

With the right marketing strategy, you can inspire Gen Z shoppers to visit your e-commerce store while they are out and about. But they will only make a purchase from that shop if it is optimized for mobile users. After all, if your e-commerce store is clunky or difficult to navigate through on an iPhone or Android device, that Gen Z shopper is more likely to simply close out the tab and look elsewhere.

4 Ways to Optimize Your Store for Mobile Commerce

Given the importance of mobile optimizing your e-commerce store, let’s take a look at four key ways in which you can do just that.

Integrate Mobile Payment Solutions

You can optimize your e-commerce shop for mobile users by integrating different mobile payment solutions. As an example, you can redo your checkout page to accept Apple Pay payments from iPhone users. Those users will then be able to pay for products in your online store with just a couple of thumb presses. That’s highly convenient, especially considering the average small size of mobile device keyboards.

Integrating new payment solutions is also good for maximizing revenue and profits from desktop users. The more ways you give your customers to pay, the more likely you are to convince those customers to make purchases in the first place.

As you acquire more mobile customers, you can use KPIs or key performance indicators to figure out which payment solutions are most used by your customer base. Use tools for keeping track of KPIs to determine what kinds of widgets and payment solutions you should integrate onto your checkout pages.

Adopt Mobile-First Design Principles

First, and most important, you should adopt mobile-first design principles right away. In a nutshell, mobile-first design principles are website design and development principles that focus on mobile device ease-of-use and functionality first, then extend that functionality to desktop users and devices. There are a few different ways to do this. 

Build Your Site for Mobile Screens

For example, you can build your e-commerce site for mobile screens right from the start. Consider that most smartphones have 4-inch to 6-inch screens, and most tablets have 7-inch to 11-inch screens. Given this information, you should make sure that your website pages and product pages are easy to view on screens of these sizes.

Streamline Site Layout

Next, you should attempt to streamline your e-commerce site’s layout and make it easier to navigate through. Small mobile devices have limited screen sizes, and people can’t always navigate around small buttons or out-of-the-way corners of websites to get where they need to go.

Streamlining your site layout often involves:

• Redoing the header bar with major links or pages that are easy to press with a thumb
• Putting all the most important pages within easy access of the landing page to your site

A streamlined site layout won’t just help mobile users, of course. Desktop customers will also find it to be easier to navigate through, potentially resulting in more purchases and a more enjoyable user experience.

Reduce Unneeded Graphics

You should try to reduce any unneeded graphics, like videos and pictures, on your mobile-first site. Why? It increases page load speeds.

You want your pages to load as quickly as possible. Smartphones and similar devices aren’t as powerful as desktop computers, so they take a little longer to load the same pages. Fast page load times are absolutely necessary if you want to get Gen Z shoppers to make purchases from your store frequently.

To that end, try to ensure that each page on your e-commerce site loads in less than a second from mobile devices. That way, your future shoppers won’t get bored and click away to a competing shop.

Get Rid of Invasive Pop-Ups

Lastly, don’t forget to remove any invasive pop-up ads that you may have placed for marketing purposes. These just distract your mobile shoppers and make them more irritated at your online store, rather than incentivizing them to purchase.

Implement Social Commerce Features

Social commerce means using social media pages and platforms, like Facebook and Instagram, to sell your products and to spread brand awareness for your business. You should try to implement social commerce features across your mobile-optimized site by:

• Including links to your social media pages on those platforms
• Including comment sections for mobile users to quickly write about their feelings or opinions
• Linking to products and social media pages when possible

In many ways, social commerce features will make your site better for mobile users as it’ll draw more potential customers to your store. More importantly, it’ll showcase that your site is revamped and ready for mobile devices.

Use Interactive Content

Last but not least, interactive content, such as games, chatbots, and more can do wonders for improving engagement and fun on your mobile-optimized site. Customers don’t just want to see what makes a product worth their time and money.

Many Gen Z shoppers want interactive, engaging experiences that make brands stand apart from the competition. AI-based chatbots in particular can be trained to create personalized greetings for returning customers and to learn the preferences of those customers over time.  This is one reason why chatbots elevate the customer experience and can help make your site more appealing for visitors to return to.

With that in mind, try to make your site layered with different interactive content and self-help tools, like self-service portals and FAQ pages. This kind of interactivity makes it more likely that Gen Z shoppers will make purchases from your online store.

Wrap Up

In the end, Gen Z consumers are likely to make up a majority of your customer base in no time. By revamping and optimizing your e-commerce store for mobile shopping, you’ll be perfectly positioned to attract these customers and maximize your revenue in the long term. Don’t forget to use CS-Cart to build or improve your website today.