75% Of Small Retailers Ignore Mobile

These days it seems nearly impossible to talk about successful marketing strategies and fail to mention mobile as an essential tool for growth. However, it seems that adopting the channel is no mean feat for the vast majority of small and medium-size businesses in the UK.

According to a new survey from research company Onepoll, while nine out of ten small retailers acknowledge the importance of mobile for their overall customer experience, less than a quarter of them actually offered a mobile device-optimised website at the time of the study.

Those who are yet to incorporate mobile in their marketing mix are mostly worried about cost, security and inability to provide the necessary resources. Still, the majority of those polled share the view that revenues from m-commerce are set to grow dramatically over the next five years.

These predictions are mirrored in recent research from Google, which shows that at present mobile accounts for 15% of all online traffic. In terms of the effect on business, missing out on this traffic is similar to closing your store for one day every week, the research notes.

From consumers’ point of view, the research finds that more than a quarter of users have abandoned a transaction because they tried to make a purchase from a non-mobile optimised site via a mobile device. Moreover, almost four in five agree that m-commerce is slow and hard to navigate on sites that are not specifically intended to be used via a smartphone.