The key to any successful eCommerce business is having a mobile responsive website or an eCommerce app. And, it is clear now that online eCommerce is here to stay.
In 2021, eCommerce sales saw a 35% increase through online penetration compared to the pre-COVID-19 levels, showing above 40% growth.
According to Statista, mobile eCommerce sales reached $2.2 trillion in 2023 and now make up 60 percent of all eCommerce sales around the world.
Responsive web design is a setup where the server always sends the same HTML code to all devices and CSS is used to alter the rendering of the page on the device.
With a mobile responsive website, you can maintain multiple pages for the same content across multiple devices.
A responsive web design layout ensures customers the same online shopping experience no matter which device they log in from.
Failure to have a mobile-responsive website would mean a poor customer experience and a lack of strategic thinking that damages your customers’ trust in you. Both B2B and B2C customers want to invest in a competent brand that they trust.
Mobile responsiveness is something you simply cannot afford to not have in this day and age. Here are 5 reasons why you should have a mobile responsive B2B eCommerce website.
Everybody loves shopping. Everybody loves convenience. Combine them, and you get mobile shopping.
In a few clicks, you get everything you need, delivered to your doorstep. This is possible only if you have a mobile responsive website, a mobile eCommerce app, or both. An eCommerce platform provider can help you get this done.
Smartphones and tablets are touted as the two key drivers of the mobile eCommerce revolution.
To leverage either of them or both for mobile shopping, it is important that your eCommerce store has a mobile responsive design that ensures that your web pages are displayed perfectly on all devices.
COVID-19 has changed selling models and aligned B2B to consumer preferences. Sales leaders globally are now navigating their businesses based on customer behavior; how they prefer to transact now and after the pandemic.
Despite the crisis, a lot of B2B businesses have maintained or increased spending while mobile apps saw a surge too as buyers relied on them more than ever.
Buyers are keen on self-service and prefer sellers that give them total control over the entire buying decision and journey.
33% of those surveyed opted in favor of having live chat during the research stage of their purchase journey since it fulfilled all these three requirements. Among those surveyed for the three most frustrating issues pertaining to suppliers’ websites,
User experience is now a huge priority for all B2B businesses.
As Bruno Delfino, Brand Marketing Manager, Google points out, “As users get more used to digital tools and products because of the pandemic, they will get better at interacting with ads and demand a better user experience,” Delfino predicts.
“That means no broken links, confusing CTAs, slow pages, or desktop-only websites.
I see a bigger role this coming year for UX teams in creating delightful and functional end-to-end advertising experiences.”
Personalization is also of paramount importance now, and many are working on this front to ensure that users get the right product recommendations and help.
Angela Zhou, APMM, Ads Marketing, Google predicts, “The term ‘account-based marketing’, when marketing and sales personalize engagement with high-value accounts, will simply disappear from our vocabulary because soon all B2B marketing will take this highly personalized approach.”
This means B2B platforms that enable personalization at scale will be in demand as the need for better technologies and quality data will grow.
72% of consumers are more likely to be loyal to a brand if they offer a personalized experience with additional rewards and benefits.
Utility, ease of use, and interaction should be primary goals while working on the UX aspect of your mobile-friendly design. The best design will ensure visual aesthetics, quick loading speed, text visibility, high-resolution images, and user-friendly navigation.
These days, B2B businesses are using product videos as often as images to boost online sales.
These come in handy when a buyer wants to get the feel of how a product operates. For instance, a buyer wants to buy 10 pieces of furniture.
So, she may first see it online, then perhaps visit the physical stores for an in-person experience, and then go back to make up their mind before buying it.
Watch this video on best practices for Google Search.
94% of B2B consumers research products before going to the store. You must ensure that customers get all the right product information they are looking for, at any time and on any device they use.
Most of the customers use their phones to research when they’re on the move. You may lose business if you don’t optimize your eCommerce store for mobile.
Google has introduced mobile-first indexing to rank websites. The official post said —
“To make our results more useful, we’ve begun experiments to make our index mobile-first.
Although our search index will continue to be a single index of websites and apps, our algorithms will eventually primarily use the mobile version of a site’s content to rank pages from that site, to understand structured data, and to show snippets from those pages in our results.
Of course, while our index will be built from mobile documents, we’re going to continue to build a great search experience for all users, whether they come from mobile or desktop devices.”
In 2021, Google announced plans to make ‘page experience’ an official Google ranking factor.
Page experience includes:
Core Web Vitals are a set of specific factors that Google considers important in a webpage’s overall user experience
Here’s a recent update by Google on June 15, 2021: The page experience update is rolling out to all users globally. It will be complete by the end of August 2021.
Need we say more?
An easy-to-navigate site that delivers user convenience is going to make a world of difference for your eCommerce business.
An all-digital or an all-physical approach may therefore not work for certain sellers. They may want to embrace a hybrid approach to meet their buyers where they want to be met.
As Carlos Hidalgo, Founder of VisiumCX puts it, “The more that B2B brands understand the motivations and humanness of their target buyers, the better chance they have at having meaningful engagement and building trusting relationships throughout the customer lifecycle.”
It’s always easier and less expensive to retain existing customers than to find new ones. Inform your customers about the use and application of products. While customers are keen on having self-service, they need after-sales support too. Help may be required to track orders, navigate through purchase history, see reviews, etc.
For a satisfied customer, the purchase journey is an ongoing loop. Unpleasant hiccups will simply drive them away. Providing all the support they need on the go, therefore, is critical.
Today, customers are averse to dealing with a salesperson.
The Forrester study found that chat and messaging are growing in popularity, especially among younger generations.
60% of millennials will engage with sales only after they have completed their own research. And once they have managed the entire buying process virtually, it’s but natural that they would want the after-sales also to be provided with the same ease.
Expect any issues to resolve quickly even before they arise. It’s a good idea to have a mobile responsive website with 24/7 support. This could be via live chat and/or phone to ensure your customers are attended to even during non-business hours.
Buyers expect trust, responsiveness, and quality improvements from their vendors. Regarding after-sales, they expect solid customer support and technical support following a sale.
It’s important to maintain a one-on-one relationship with them through text or mail. Since B2B often involves large quantities, there can be errors while fulfilling orders.
B2B brands are now employing powerful APIs to integrate sites with their ERP and automate different aspects of customer experience within an eCommerce ecosystem.
Dashboards are being used to help teams fulfill orders, ensure timely delivery, review pending orders, and analyze the reasons for the delay. These dashboards also provide details about each order, PO numbers, the stage of delivery, etc.
73% of B2B sales transactions come from millennials and 57% of B2B buyers are leveraging social media to find vendors. It is important that you offer a true omnichannel experience to your customers to help them with everything they need, no matter where they are.
The key lies in gentle hand-holding while giving them complete control over their buying journey both before and after sales — on phone. We believe mobile responsiveness is the only way to win big and pave the path for your digital success.
Mobile eCommerce is absolutely critical for the survival and success of your B2B business. From 1.66 billion in 2016, the number of digital buyers globally has gone beyond 2.14 billion in 2021.
Mobile responsiveness can do wonders for your business. Here’s what you need to do:
ewiz commerce offers all this and has been leading B2B e-commerce businesses through the much-needed digital acceleration to navigate through an overly crowded market in these trying times.
In 2020, businesses globally realized the importance of going digital. The ones that only had physical stores had no choice but to incur a huge loss or go simply go digital and sell their products online. It is ideal to take a hybrid approach and be present online as well as offline.
If you’ve already planned to move your B2B business from a physical presence to an online eCommerce store, or if you have an eCommerce website that isn’t mobile-friendly, don’t wait any further.
Let us help you.
Get a Live Demo of ewiz commerce today.
What is a Responsive web design?
