Responsive Design: A Tide That Can Lift All eCommerce Boats

As eCommerce shows no signs of slowing, retailers are under the gun to provide a mobile experience to consumers that is seamless and also successful in converting shoppers into buyers.

One way for that to happen is through “responsive design” in which websites are configured to be easily read and navigated via mobile device — with a minimum of resizing and scrolling — which in turn eases “friction” for the consumer.

That’s an important trend, because as mobile shopping grows by double digits annually, any transaction that is abandoned before the “buy button” gets pushed means lost sales to a retailer. At its best, responsive design provides the opportunity for a consumer to navigate a website with aplomb, no matter the type of device used.

In terms of the way the technology works, responsive design eliminates the need for mobile device users to use the zoom/scroll functions to view pages by loading all code onto a single URL.

An increasing number of online retailers have been embracing responsive websites. As noted in late July by mobile marketing firm Pure Oxygen Labs, as many as 20 percent of the top 500 mobile retail names have taken up responsive design since last year, which dwarfs the 9 percent that had been using those types of websites in 2014.

Still, that implies that the majority of retailers still have a dedicated mobile site, and indeed at 54 percent of respondents, it would seem that responsive design has a significant amount of runway to cover. And, by reducing duplicative efforts, firms can save both money and time.

Interestingly, the Pure Oxygen survey found that at least some companies remain mobile holdouts, with 25 of them (at 5 percent of the total) operating with no mobile site at all.

As Pure Oxygen found and has been reported throughout other media, Google’s algorithm changes have pushed “mobile-friendly” sites above their decidedly less-friendly brethren in online searches. The repercussion is that larger sites have the bucks and the people to create mobile-friendly experiences, and while smaller firms have lagged, they must indeed play catch up.

That may be good news for smaller players who are 1) just beginning to establish an online presence and/or 2) firms with limited resources. The key is for executives to bring the same experience across desktops and mobile devices whether selling goods or services. In the meantime, the fact that mobile search now has surpassed desktop, a trend that began earlier this year, means that the choice to adopt “mobile first, and mobile always” may be a clear-cut one for marketers and other corporate strategists.

One group that can benefit from responsive design: B2B firms. As noted in a Forrester study late last year, B2B platforms should look to curtail site “sprawl” and make it easier for the 50 percent of customers who use mobile devices to conduct their research to find what they need.