There is no bigger time of the year for online retail then Black Friday weekend leading to Cyber Monday. With the growth of mobile adoption from consumers, IBM reports that purchases from a mobile device will command more than 50% of all online sales this Cyber Monday and holiday season. With such a great opportunity to attract new customers and service the ones that you already have, companies need to focus on the mobile user experience to maximize mobile sales on Cyber Monday. Below are six ways to ensure that you maximize mobile sales on Cyber Monday and over the entire holiday shopping season.

Site Speed

If you don’t think that the time it takes for your web page to load is a serious issue then you probably haven’t heard the statistic that every 1 second delay in page load time leads to a 7% reduction in conversion. To make your stomach churn even more, let’s put that statistic into monetary form. If your ecommerce site made $100,000 a day, a one second page load delay could potentially cost your company $2.5 million a year. One simple way you can increase page load time speed on mobile is to optimize your images. Shrink the file size of your images using the PNG Optimizer. Another way to increase page speed is to leverage website caching.

User Friendly Interface

Sometimes we don’t think about the mobile experience when developing a website or new webpages. Buttons and links need to be large enough so that an index finger or thumb can touch to click them. Know the width of the specific devices that your target market uses. MAKE YOUR BUY BUTTON HUGE! Streamline the experience with mobile and make sure that the flow of content and other website material doesn’t create friction within the conversion process. For example, if I’m using my iPhone to shop on your website, I don’t want to rotate my phone to see a full sized image. Also, forms shouldn’t have more than 4 to 5 fields. I don’t know if you’ve ever filled out a form on a smartphone, but it’s not as easy as using a laptop.

Remove Sliders

People shop on mobile devices because they are short on time and on the go. Nobody on a mobile device has time to browse through multiple slides on a website. Instead of sliders, you can better use that top real estate of your website by showing relevant sale items or promotional offers for Cyber Monday. Also, show returning customers products based on their shopping habits and past purchases.

Create Unique Customer Experiences

If you were lucky enough to make the trek out to this year’s Dreamforce conference in San Francisco, you probably know that Salesforce is pushing for more personalized customer service. How you ask? One way is through face-to-face video customer service/sales assistance directly from your online store or mobile app. Earlier we talked about how page load speed affects conversion. That is a direct distinction from the fact that we, as consumers, expect immediate service and instant results. Imagine the scenario where you are browsing your favorite clothing store's website and you can talk directly with a personal shopper who can help you pick out the right jeans, jacket and accessories. It’s like in-store service but provided online from the comfort of your home. Now think of that from the retailer's perspective. The personal shopper can increase the shopping cart value by upselling or recommending trendier products – statistics say that the average online shopping cart value is 30% higher when a customer is given real-time support, or in this case, personal shopping assistance. Give a customer an in-store experience without the massive crowds of Black Friday weekend and you will create loyal customers.

Make Checkout Easy

If someone is shopping on a mobile device, it is safe to say that they are short on time and can’t waste precious minutes when deciding to make a purchase. Reducing the amount of steps it takes for the user to actually make a purchase will greatly increase your chances of converting. Another consideration is that many customers shop on mobile devices but make final purchase decisions on their computers. Make sure the experience between the two is seamless and hassle free to capture the device-hoppers. Don’t make the customer sign up for an account. Fredrick Haywood of dotcomweavers says “If the checkout process is more than a couple of steps, display a progress bar that allows the customer to see how many steps remain.” One last thing, make sure that you offer different payment methods. Credit cards, debit cards and PayPal should suffice. Here is a good blog post from LemonStand that has other experts weighing in on how to create better mobile ecommerce experiences.

Be Consistent Across Every Channel

Website, email, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, text ads, banner ads…as you can see, there are many different channels where we engage our customers. Messaging and branding must be consistent across all these channels. Use the identical styles, fonts and colors across all images and content. If you’re going to run a text ad that promotes free shipping then have “Free Shipping” clearly visible on the landing page. You can reduce buyer friction and increase conversion rates if you keep the content, branding and messaging consistent this holiday season.

Conclusion

Eat this up…research found that 91% of customers would stop shopping on your site and go to a competitor upon having a bad mobile experience. Let’s make sure that doesn't happen on Black Friday, Cyber Monday, this holiday season, or ever again. Maximize your mobile sales, get into the black and send this blog post to your web developers. Make sure that your site is ready for an explosion of holiday sales.