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Mobile checkouts: how user-friendly are the top 10 US retailers?

An effective, user-friendly mobile checkout requires a fine balance, as retailers need to present all the necessary information to encourage a sale without cluttering the pages and making them difficult to navigate.

In my experience the best mobile checkouts tend to be those that have stripped out any unnecessary information and data fields so customers can make a purchase as quickly as possible.

In the early days of m-commerce retailers presented mobile users with a version of their desktop checkout, so fields were too small and CTAs were difficult to click.

Times have thankfully changed, but I thought it would be interesting to see how the top US retailers have designed their mobile checkouts to see how user-friendly they are.

Here’s a quick recap of the criteria I evaluated using my Android smartphone…

The state of digital marketing in Hong Kong: highlights from Digital Cream 2013

Over 100 senior marketers attended our inaugural roundtable event in Hong Kong last month. 

They deftly explored and shared nimble ways to utilise the very latest digital marketing ideas and techniques in order to better equip themselves for their future endeavours.

Some were intent on making stronger inroads into mainland China, others were planning on taking full advantage of the small but also highly lucrative local Hong Kong marketplace (a jewel in the China crown), and for a fair number it was to better hone their abilities and skills to market across the whole APAC region.

Back up bro! Does anyone really want smartphone NFC?

Alternative payment methods are pretty much the hottest topic around, and last week EE previewed its new NFC smartphone wallet. Retailers, however, are pretty adamant NFC wallets are not worth their time.

At the same time, marketers are still plugging away with new advertising campaigns using NFC technology to deliver content. Is this anything other than a fad?

In this post I look at the uses of NFC, assess some recent campaigns, and ponder what the future holds. (Major hat tip to NFC World, where I found a bunch of the campaign info).

Online department store SEO: ASOS gets the onsite basics right

Online-only ‘department stores’ have a big job in terms of SEO, thanks to large product ranges, the size of the sites and the number of brands contained therein.

So how well are they doing? Are they getting the basics right? 

With help from 4Ps Marketing SEO Manager Ruth Attwood, I have some insight into the on-site SEO strategies of four major ‘department store’ websites: ASOS, Boohoo.com, MyWardrobe, and Net A Porter. 

As we can see from the example of ASOS, doing the basics well can produce excellent results, and give brands a real advantage over competitors. 

Exclusive offers and in-app purchasing most important features for mobile apps: report

Back in the early days of mobile commerce there was frequent debate over whether businesses should opt for a mobile site or a mobile app.

Fortunately most businesses and marketers now realise that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach and that the two platforms aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.

However we do occasionally still see businesses launching apps without properly considering the functionality that will be most appealing and useful to their customers.

Data from our new Mobile Commerce Compendium shows that, more than anything else, consumers want to be rewarded with exclusive offers if they download a retail app, with 38% of respondents selecting this as an important feature for smartphone apps.

‘Big data’ causes big frustrations for marketers: report

Big data has become something of a buzzword over the past year or so, but is it actually useful? 

It conjures thoughts of massive amounts of forbidding, almost unfathomable data, and it seems that it has had little impact on the role of web analysts. 

In fact, the response of 8% of marketers in our Online Measurement and Strategy Report 2013, created in assocation with Lynchpin, was: ‘don’t care – big data is a pointless marketing term’.

Announcing the Festival of Marketing

Marketing is changing, and we’re celebrating that change with our week-long Festival of Marketing in October. 

In five inter-connected events, we’ll be outlining our view of the state of marketing, and the challenges every marketer should focus on.

And don’t worry, there’ll be comedy and music fringe events and parties as well. 

The Festival takes its inspiration from our Modern Marketing Manifesto, and is put together with the help of Marketing Week, Creative Review, Design Week and Data Strategy. 

Here’s an overview of what we’re up to… 

20 automated emails your customers won’t delete

Ok, I can’t guarantee that all emails are opened, but triggered emails have been shown to dramatically increase open and click rate.

The creative has to be tested, and each business will have its own unique customer sensibilities. However, this list, provided by Responsys at its Interact 2013, is a great starting point from which to think about your own automated programmes.

I’ve added examples from around the Econsultancy blog.

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152 killer keywords for email subject lines (and 137 crappy ones)

We had a hunch that word choice in email subject lines have a strong effect on response rates.  So, we tested 287 keywords across a sample of 2.2bn emails to see which work, and which don’t. 

Why? Because President Obama has done more for email marketing than any world leader in the history of mankind. How? By focusing on subject line testing, his digital team optimised their donation campaigns to generate hundreds of millions of dollars online.

Despite Obama’s best efforts, most marketers still view email marketing as the Bluth Company’s Banana Stand of Arrested Development fame: a more boring and less sexy marketing channel than pretty much anything else imaginable. 

But – and never forget this – there’s always money in the banana stand! There is great power in optimising subject lines.

In case you missed my presentations at MarketingWeekLive last week, you can find out more about our findings after the jump.

Digital transformation and the codes for growth: what it means to agencies

Marketers are seeing their organisations undergoing massive transformation from the impact of digital.

Businesses, through marketing and brand departments, no longer have to find a reason to do something digital. This is a change defined by consumer appetite for engagement, with each other as well as with brands and businesses, in ways that suit their needs at that very moment.

Engagement is now characterised by speed, through the use of technology that’s increasingly a part of consumers’ lives.

In this post, I’ll look at how agencies need to adapt and evolve in order to help their clients transform their businesses.

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