They will also tell you that one of the key elements in convincing a consumer to take action is video that can be easily played back on a smartphone or tablet.
New research shows that morere than a quarter of online retail purchases in Australia are made on mobile devices, amounting to sales worth $4 billion every year.
At JB Hi Fi the tracking of inbound sales from smartphones is often over 45%.
The Deloitte Access Economics report shows consumers are rapidly shifting to smartphones to purchase goods online, with research showing that the portion of Australians who bought a product on their smartphone grew from 9.5 per cent in 2012 to 19 per cent in 2013.
Australians spent a total of $16 billion with online retailers in 2014 and 27 per cent of that was via mobile devices.
However, the report identifies that some online retailers are engaging more in “m-commerce” than e-commerce, with the majority of their sales coming from mobile customers.
The Catch Group, which is behind daily deals website Catch of the Day, sees 70 per cent of total sales coming from either its mobile website or smartphone app.
The report says Catch initially struggled with its mobile site until it changed its business model to suit mobile users, who make three times as many purchases but mostly buy lower-value items.
The report, commissioned by the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association, shows how Catch has improved sales by responding to its mobile audience’s behaviour.
For example, after noticing that customers were not making a second purchase until their first one had been delivered, Catch now sends notifications through its smartphone app when an item has been shipped, triggering more sales.
Despite the shift in sales to mobile, Deloitte points out that buying goods is not the most common retail activity on mobile devices: 48 per cent of Australians smartphone users have visited a bricks and mortar business after searching on their device and 42 per cent have searched for a product on their smartphone in the past week.
The report, Mobile nation: Opportunities and strategies for retail, also highlights the potential for mobile devices to be used to enrich traditional retail shopping.
Coles, it points out, has used an app to combine the supermarket’s flybuys program with its in-house credit card.
“Now, customers use the mobile app (often when they’re in store doing their shop) to check and activate their latest flybuys offers. This has increased engagement with the loyalty system,” the report says.
However, Australian businesses are yet to capitalise on the potential benefits the shift to mobile offers, the report says, with “e-wallet” and smartphone payment systems failing to gain a foothold.
“Retailers can save on flat fees charged by banks on transactions, only having to pay when consumers top-up their account,” the report says, using coffee chain Starbucks as an example of one successful payment app.
While online retailers netted $16 billion in 2014, that figure pales in comparison to the $238 billion spent with traditional retail outlets.
About three quarters of Australia’s online retail spending goes to domestic companies, the report says.
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