A Mobile Site is Recommended if Retailers Want a Merry Christmas

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25% of all Christmas shopping searches on Google are coming from mobile devices. Google’s Head of Retail, Ross McDonald, encourages Australian retailers to have a mobile friendly site.

As the 2011 Christmas approaches, online retailers should be doing all they can to be accessible to the customer. Ross McDonald, Head of Retail, Google Australia and New Zealand recently published a blog post ‘2011 Christmas retail search trends: Santa’s got a smartphone‘, this post shares Google’s research and tells of some interesting facts and figures that online retailers may find useful this Christmas.

“It looks as though this year’s true Christmas miracle is mobile. While retail has posted impressive gains over last year’s season the number of shopping queries coming from mobile devices increased 220% year on year, in fact one quarter of all Christmas shopping related Google searches this year now comes from mobile devices”, says McDonald.

September blog post backs up this statement by providing the facts on how popular smartphones are in Australia. “Australia has the second highest smartphone penetration in the world. Two in five Australian smartphone users use mobile search daily”, says Jason Pellegrino, Head of Mobile Ads, Google Australia and New Zealand.

These high numbers prove that mobile is a popular way for Australian customers to find information on a number of different brands.

McDonald is using this information to encourage online retailers to have a mobile friendly site, but says, “there’s no need to rush to build a complicated mobile e-commerce websites or expensive mobile apps. 49% of the Australians we surveyed had used their smartphone to research and call the local business, while 45% visit a local business they’ve found using their smartphone. That means that most businesses can start by making sure their location, contact information and opening hours are accessible on mobiles.”

If you want to get your business functioning on mobile. McDonald recommends a ‘mobile health check’ and there are some pointers at howtogomo.com.

Check how your current site looks on a smart phone:

1. Are images appearing properly?

2. Is text visible without zooming or pinching?

3. Are your links and buttons thumb friendly?

4. Is your shopping cart visible?

5. Is your location and phone number visible?

If you can answer yes to all these questions, then your site is considered to be mobile friendly.

Article by Samantha Youl

Sam is a content creator for The Media Pad. She was never sure what type of media job she wanted to settle for after studying media and communications at University, but being a bit of a shopaholic and a mobile phone junkie, The Media Pad seemed to be the perfect fit. When she isn’t watching the online retail space she spends far too much time playing netball and investigating her next trip abroad.

2 Comments

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  • Chris
  • 12th December

  Nice post Sam. Agree 100%. Educating retailers is definitely the challenge here but info like this makes it a lot easier. Thank you.

  Reply
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  • Bradley
  • 12th December

  Some amazing statistics for mobile usage this Christmas.

  Reply