Magento Introduces the Mobile Optimization Initiative for Merchants

Retailers of all sizes continue to have a common problem: converting sales on mobile devices. While smartphones continue to gain share as a primary channel for consumers to shop online, the ratio of mobile views to conversions lags in comparison to desktop. Case in point -- a quarter of all back to school shopping time was spent on a smartphone (according to Adobe Analytics), yet desktop saw a 3.37% conversion rate with an average basket size of $142. Whereas conversion on smartphones was at 1.24% with an average basket size of $111.

Retailers can’t afford to miss out on more effectively monetizing consumers’ time on mobile devices particularly heading into the competitive holiday season. To help retailers tackle the mCommerce gap, the Magento Community, led by technology partners PayPal and HiConversion, today launched the Mobile Optimization Initiative. To date, the participating system integration partners have conducted over 250 experiments resulting in three million data points from merchants worldwide.

TACKLING MOBILE CHECKOUT OPTIMIZATION
It’s critical that companies deliver memorable mobile experiences across every facet of consumer engagement. Yet it’s the mobile checkout experience that’s become critical for every brand. A consumer won’t hesitate to abandon their purchase if the payment process is confusing or overly time-consuming.

The Mobile Optimization Initiative offers retailers a complimentary mobile checkout funnel assessment, optimized campaign design and implementation, and professional services during the active program. All participating merchants will benefit from:

• Leveraging HiConversion’s analytics to detect ‘friction points’ in each merchant’s checkout funnel and to formulate data driven test hypothesis;
• A series of A/B experiments that are then run as a single optimization campaign
• Experience optimization using adaptive algorithms; and,
• A final report encompassing results and actionable insights.

The initiative works with 15 system integrators providing professional services, including Web 2 Market, Redstage, Razoyo, Something Digital, Imagination Media, Wagento, ICUBE, JH, Gene, IWD Agency and Lima Consulting Group. Over 60 merchants are already on board and the program continues to expand globally.

The support provided to merchants in the Mobile Optimization Initiative will help them capture some of the billions of dollars that are being lost in revenue for online merchants. To date, participating merchants have seen their average revenue per visit increase by 7.5 percent. An added benefit: the initiative has found that a better mobile buying experience translates to a better desktop buying experience.

NO ONE COMPANY CAN SOLVE THE MCOMMERCE GAP ALONE: IT REQUIRES A COMMUNITY

The Magento Community is a vibrant, collaborative group dedicated to improving the online buying experience for everyone. From developers and system integrators, to designers and merchants, the Community has come together to directly address this challenge.  Leveraging the innovative technology of HiConversion, our system integrator partners have helped merchants all over the world implement and run these experiments to help deliver higher conversion rates and better buying experiences. By aggregating and anonymizing the learnings, then sharing them across the Community, everyone benefits.

As we look ahead to the quickly approaching holiday season, there’s no better time for retailers to optimize the mobile checkout experience. Visit here to learn more about or join the Mobile Optimization Community Initiative.