Introducing the Zen Cart mCommerce Solution
Mobile commerce (mcommerce) is a type of e-commerce conducted through mobile devices such as mobile phones, personal digital assistants and other mobile devices with a wireless connection - including smart phones (iPhones, Google Android), tablets (iPad, Amazon Kindle), netbooks and notebooks.
With over 300 million Web Compatible Phones sold in 2010 the growth in mCommerce is astonishing and your website MUST be "Phone Friendly" or you will be missing out on a massive audience!
"Consumer engagement with mobile commerce has exploded, with as many as 91% of UK consumers having used their mobile device for commerce, to either research or purchase a product. "
Research by ATG GroupInternetretailing.net
"many mobile phone users would have the confidence to purchase more products via a mobile website or app if the products were easier to find using an intuitive search functionality and with secure payment options. Once these barriers are dealt with the opportunity to gain new customers and increase sales revenue via mobile devices is huge"
Research conducted by ATG Group
.....With this in mind the JSWeb team have sourced an mCommerce solution that instantly recognises if a customer visiting your site is using a mobile device and will display a mobile-friendly version allowing them to easily browse and purchase from your Zen Cart store.
Top Retailers using mCommerce to increase sales!
Here are a selection of the top retailers in the world who have developed their own mCommerce website.
M&S Takes a £5,000 Order on Mobile Site via a users iPhone
"At the end of April 2011, the retailer had taken 66,000 orders on the site since its launch on 12 May last year. What's more just this month Marks & Spencer has trumped its previous best order value for its mCommerce site, with a £5,156 order for its Sonoma Light freestanding kitchen units, including sink and taps. The customer who bought the goods returned to the site a few days later and bought a matching table worth £400. The previous biggest order on the M&S mobile site was £3,280 for two sofas.
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Research conducted by Mobilemarketingmagazine.com - Ireland
Our mCommerce Features
Now you can allow your customers to easily browse your store from their mobile phone. Our system converts your eCommerce Zen Cart into a mobile friendly mCommerce store, made for touch devices and smart phones.
Built to perform
Uses a mobile CSS style sheet to quickly load the design on a mobile device. Image thumbnails are optimised.
Use your existing Zen Cart
No need to change your
Zen Cart store
Latest Mobile Device support
Runs on Iphone/Ipod Touch iOS, Blackberry OS6, Android
We do all the hard work
Our expert team will install and configure* your mCommerce so you don't have to worry about a thing.
Optimised for Mobiles
Smooth navigation and fast load time for purchasing on the move
* Our mobile plugin is naturally generic - it is basically an extra template and as such is prepared in a generic fashion to work with default ZenCart; we will make sure your logo is in place and that we incorporate any changes to the language files that may have been made, but any additional styling, design work or additional tasks to meet your current customisation will incur additional fees.
An example mCommerce Store
One of our first customers to order this solution was http://www.BabyShower.ie who is already seeing an increase in their sales! Their new mCommerce site is allowing their customers to browser and purchase products using their SmartPhones.
Below is how the site looks as standard on an iphone (very cramped and hard to navigate)
Below is an example of how the BabyShower.ie website (mCommerce mode) looks on an iPhone phone.
VIDEO DEMO
Take just 5mins out to watch this demo to see the mCommerce module in action on a Zen Cart store - it shouldn't be missed.
Example Screen Shots
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Easy to use navigation  |
Easy category layout listing  |
Simple product display  |
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Simple touch login  |
More Info Buttons  |
Should I go Mobile?
As usual Google Analytics provides the answer to that question. This GA report is from Lens 10, and allows you to judge from metrics such as pages per visit and goal completion rate and decide whether a mobile site is needed. The answer is very probably yes for most sites.
If you would like this report, simply let us know.
A selection of Clients now using the JSWeb mCommerce module
NB. Remember, these need to viewed on a mobile device!
Technical / What's New
The new Zen Cat eCommerce V3 is built from the ground up using the latest JQuery 1.2 Mobile framework. This Touch-Optimized Web Framework (unified HTML5 interface) supports all popular mobile device platforms
What's more its lightweight code is built with progressive enhancement, and has a flexible, easily manageable design.
The module has been build to work on a single Zen Cart website domain and automatically includes build to display your categories, products, and checkout functionality ready for a mobile audience
jQuery Mobile has been built to support both A/B/C grade modern desktop, smartphone, tablet, and e-reader platforms. View which phones it has been tested on here
A number of new features have become available within the latest v3 versions which include:
Zen Cart Admin Order Type
You can now visually see what type of device your customers used to place their order be it on a standard PC/Laptop or Mobile device. This gives a great view of how well the module is working for you:
mCommerce Questions and Answers
Q. Do I, as the website owner, need to own a mobile/cell phone with web browsing functionality built in e.g. iPhone, Android handset etc
A. No, this module allows all those thousands/millions of users who do have a phone with web browser capabilities to visit, browse and purchase from your site when they use their mobile device.
Q. Is this a separate eCommerce website that I need to setup all over again?
A. No, this is just a different view of your existing eCommerce website. You don’t need to make any changes yourself. It will just look different to those who are using mobile devices as they will be automatically put into an mCommerce view of your site.
Q. Can a user switch between the eCommerce and mCommerce view?
A. Yes, we have added a link at the bottom of each page so a user can switch their view.
Q. Does this upgrade from V1 or V2
A. Unfortunately not. Since we built V2 the world of mobile surfing has rapidly changed and to accommodate this V3 has been built from the ground up using latest JQuery framework (meaning it's scalable ready for future releases). For those of you who purchased V1/V2 we are offering a £50 discount and we would uninstall and install the latest V3 version.
We hope you enjoy this software which aims to help power your online success. mCommerce is set to be one of the fastest growing outlets for product research and online sales, so you're now primed to ride the top of that wave.
mCommerce News
Google Prediction for 2013
Peter McAvoy, from Google, couldn't stress enough that due to the spike in mobile device usage that all online businesses need to be adopting mobile Commerce (mCommerce). For those eCommerce stores that remain as is (PC/Laptop only) will quickly fall behind both on the search engines and user acknowledgement.
"I predict that 2013 will be the year of the multi device user, with consumers moving seamlessly between Smartphone, Tablet and Destop/Laptop (as well as seeing devices like fitbit, smart watches and wearable computing like Glass start to appear) depending on context and intent. Marketers start realizing how consumer purchase habits are changing and adjust their marketing strategies & attribution models accordingly and 4G rollout in Ireland leads to a significant increase in Mobile Usage and content sharing. We will still not have any self-flying cars though, I'll hold out for them in 2014."
Peter McAvoy - Google Irleand
Why We Will All Be Shopping Mobile
Rob Feldmann - CEO of BrandAlley.co.uk, the leading private sales website in the UK talks about how both retailers and analysts have hailed m-commerce as the future payment model for the retail sector and are certain that it will soon come to replace the dominance of e-commerce transactions.
Huff Post - UK
m-Commerce due to grow 504% from 2012
In their latest report, M-Commerce in the UK 2012, Verdict, the independent retail analysts, forecasts the channel to grow 504% from 2012 to 2017.
freshbusinessthinking - UK
John Lewis “surprised” by surge in m-commerce sales
M&S Takes a £5,000 Order on Mobile Site via a users iPhone
JSWEB Get Zen Cart Stores Moving
Have you thought about the mobile web
Merchants give m-commerce a vote of confidence with their investments
"10 Million UK Consumers Using Mobile Commerce
"Research undertaken by the IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau) has revealed that 40 percent of consumers often reach for their mobile when they see an advert that interests them, with 3pm-6pm being the hottest time for at-home mobile shopping!" "Primary Drivers to mComemrce - the advancement of network technologies, lower mobile data cost, adoption of smartphones and an increase in application and mobile Web usability" (Read the PDF)
"More and more people are using their mobiles to access the web, and this means more opportunities for mobile retailers. According to the Pew Research Center, 57.8m American consumers access the web via mobile devices on any given day, while in the UK web traffic from mobiles is already estimated to be growing eight times faster than traffic from PCs. "
"High street fashion retailer New Look announces the launch of a fully transactional mCommerce site. The site has been designed and built by mobile and digital communications business Mobile Interactive Group (MIG). It integrates into New Look’s back end systems and utilises the latest developments in mobile technology (Javascript, CSS3 & HTML5) to offer the ultimate mobile shopping experience."
"Mobile traffic to the John Lewis online clearance sale soared 119 per cent on last year’s levels, with the amount of cash spent online from mobile phones up 46 per cent since the sale began at 5pm on Christmas Eve.
"Mobile has reached a scale now where all retailers have to take it seriously," said Jonathon Brown, head of online selling for John Lewis. "Customers' behaviours have changed. The transaction volume we've had in the last few days has surprised all of us."
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"At the end of April 2011, the retailer had taken 66,000 orders on the site since its launch on 12 May last year. What's more just this month Marks & Spencer has trumped its previous best order value for its mCommerce site, with a £5,156 order for its Sonoma Light freestanding kitchen units, including sink and taps. The customer who bought the goods returned to the site a few days later and bought a matching table worth £400. The previous biggest order on the M&S mobile site was £3,280 for two sofas.
"
"JSWEB undertook a study of leading mobile sites such as Marks and Spencer, ASOS, New Look and Walmart, all of which are globally recognised as mCommerce leaders. Using them as the epitome of good reference sites, the JSWEB team developed a user-friendly mCommerce application that provided the best of the features, but allowing Zen Cart store owners to easily switch their store to mCommerce mode at a fraction of the cost these corporates are likely to have paid."
"If you own any kind of Android phone or have an iphone then you’ll know how valuable it is when you’re on the move. You can check your emails, make phone calls, make video calls, take photos and of course surf the net. Effectively the mobile web is exactly that! The Internet on your mobile phone or smart device."
"Web-only retailers, retail chains and consumer brand manufacturers with e-commerce sites will be significantly investing in mobile commerce this year, a new study finds, advancing the retail channel that is inextricably weaving itself into the fabric of e-commerce."
* 23% of online UK consumers conducted a mobile transaction last year
* 75% see no reason why a mobile transaction can't be completed first time
* 66% would be less likely to buy from a brand following a poor mobile"
