By Chris Lee

Multiple surveys indicate that mobile commerce (m-commerce), the purchasing of products via mobile handsets, is fast accelerating in the UK. Studies from eDigitalResearch and Portaltech suggest that a quarter (25 per cent) of all consumers have used their mobile to research information and purchase products, and 20 per cent of smart phone users make an actual purchase using it, while almost a third use their phones to explore and analyse goods. Earlier this year researchers at Juniper Research predicted that the mobile coupons market will double globally to exceed $12 billion by 2014.

One company seeing a massive mobile uptake is The Gift Experience, a UK-based website specialising in presents and experiences for special occasions. In the last year alone, visits from mobile devices to the site have increased by 924 per cent, coupled with a 700 per cent increase in revenue generated through mobile devices. The Gift Experience’s digital agency Chapter Eight recommended the development of a mobile site to accommodate the rise in customers from mobile devices.

Changing shopping habits

According to Trevor Pervin, owner of The Gift Experience, the company has developed its mobile site to address an evolving consumer culture.

“We've been observing the success of the large retailers into the mobile market and wanted to become one of the first online gift superstores to offer the same service,” he told NMK. “We can only attribute this to changes in consumer shopping habits and the fact that our regular website was pretty mobile friendly to start off with.”

Interestingly, Pervin said that the average order value of the mobile site is 12 per cent higher than the full website, with the largest orders between £150-200, so customers are already comfortable making big purchases via mobile devices.

Since the mobile site’s launch, The Gift Experience’s revenue has increase by 116 per cent, built on a doubling of transactions, 30 per cent more visits and a drop of 11 per cent on abandonment rates.

Get ready for mobile

According to Pervin to create a truly mobile-ready site it must be able to serve multiple devices, for example, not displaying a desktop version of a website on a Windows Mobile handset or ensuring that Flash-enabled websites are not served as-is on the iPhone.

“Build [your mobile site] for the widest possible audience - don't deliver to a single audience, such as just for iPhones or just for Windows Mobile,” Pervin advised. “Keep navigation simple; remove extraneous promotion and navigation prompts. Keep it functional, make it easy for people to transact and get something achieved. Mobile websites are less about browsing and more about doing.”

Pervin advises organisations to monitor their mobile usage, as he believes there is a tipping point when it makes business sense to invest in a mobile channel in order to maximise their return.

“Plan your mobile strategy and keep it integrated,” he concluded. “Chapter Eight's mobile platform is built from the ground up into their core end-to-end ecommerce system - so it's no extra work to manage and process sales from addition channels. Lastly, always keep testing and improving the experience.”