A Forrester study has shown that the experience of shopping over smartphones is irritating U.S. consumers.
Forrester Research has now released its most recent online shopping forecast and has shown that the mobile commerce experience is causing frustration to 4 out of every 5 shoppers who have tried the channel.
The prediction for online shopping as a whole is that by the end of 2020, U.S. digital retail would skyrocket to $500 billion.
Comparatively, the online retail sales in the country are currently expected to reach $373 billion by the end of this year. Forrester specifically pointed out that the mobile commerce experience is proving itself to be more of a challenge than a help to many American consumers. In fact, among the participants in its survey, 78 percent of consumers said that they have been frustrated with having tried to shop over their smartphones, typically because of the small screen size or because of slow downloads.
Overall, while online continues to grow, the mobile commerce experience is vexing most people who try it.
Still, as retailers continue to boost their efforts to be more mobile friendly and optimize their websites for smartphone and tablet sized screens and capabilities, the struggles associated with m-commerce are shrinking to a certain degree. Gains are being experienced by retailers who are taking on omnichannel strategies, such as in-store pickup or ship-from-store options. Even the endless aisle is making an impact.
The author of the report, Sucharita Mulpuru, a Forrester analyst, explained that even as many retailers are still scrambling to try to master the very basics of the m-commerce channel, “we hear from merchants that these services improve customer satisfaction and directly facilitate faster delivery of products to shoppers.” It is currently estimated that about $1.5 trillion of the total sales made in the United States are influenced by the web in some way.
As much as growth is definitely occurring, the fact remains that the mobile commerce experience is a troublesome one. The main challenge now appears to be that people are struggling to tap their touchscreens when it comes to the “buy now” button. While mobile is certainly influencing sales, the direct conversion rates are quite low as shoppers struggle to complete the checkout process on their smaller-sized devices.
