More and more online shoppers are making their purchases on mobile devices. In Q4 of 2017, mobile sales were up 40% from the same period in 2016. A recent study by Ericsson showed that 43% of those surveyed use mobile shopping to make weekly purchases, and the majority interviewed believe digital shopping assistants like Alexa will actively help with purchase decisions within the next three years.
As online shopping continues to shift from desktop to mobile and tablet devices, brands need to be ready to pivot their enhanced content to reflect what mobile customers are looking for.
Brands creating enhanced content with Amazon and Webcollage have the ability to tailor their product pages for mobile devices without sacrificing the look of desktop content. Webcollage has a responsive system that automatically adjusts product page content onto mobile platforms for optimal viewing and browsing on phones or tablets. Amazon has also been working to make mobile a priority and had has increased the visibility of mobile A+ content by making content visible without having to click a “See More” button.
But brands can’t only count on retailers to optimize their product pages for mobile shopping. Here are the best ways content creators can ensure product detail pages stand out on smartphones and tablets.
Best Practices for Mobile Pages
The main thing brands should focus on is the size and quality of images used on mobile pages. Clear, high-resolution images are essential. If the images include text, it should be minimal, with large, clear fonts that can be easily read without mobile shoppers needing to click to enlarge them.
Some brands have already started creating specific mobile-ready hero images that include a close-up view of packaging and quickly give the consumer details about the product such as size, count, and product category. Instead of a traditional product shot, these mobile-friendly images give customers the information they need without having to click or zoom and have the added benefit of standing out more clearly in search results pages. Here is a mobile-ready hero image compared with a standard hero image:
For premium A+ pages, Amazon requires separate images to be loaded into the modules to optimize mobile viewing. The dimensions for a full-width banner on mobile pages is 600 x 450 pixels, which is significantly smaller and differently proportioned than the 1464 x 600 banners required for desktops. Webcollage’s responsive design automatically rescales images to fit mobile screens, but just because an image looks good on a desktop page doesn’t guarantee it will on a smaller phone screen.
Thankfully, both Amazon and Webcollage offer previews that show what enhanced content created on a desktop will look like on mobile devices, so it’s fairly easy for brands to see if their assets translate well to mobile before they publish the content.
An Example of Good Mobile Content: Aveeno Baby
One downside of enhanced content on Walmart is that customers aren’t immediately shown the content once they visit a product page. To see enhanced content on walmart.com, which is hosted and syndicated by Webcollage, customers are required to click “About this Item” before the content is served to the site. Shoppers on Amazon have to scroll down to see A+ content, but they don’t have to click anything for the content to appear.
Once customers decide to learn more about this Aveeno Baby shampoo, they will find high-quality, mobile-optimized content. Though it’s not specifically “mobile-ready” like the shampoo example above, this Aveeno Baby product image is clear and high-resolution and is paired with informative bullets detailing the shampoo’s features and benefits. The content scrolls logically, starting with the most important info about the shampoo, followed by sections about its ingredients and other Aveeno products the customer may be interested in.
The simple illustrations used with the paragraphs that outline the product’s ingredients look especially good on mobile, filling up the screen and standing out in a way they don’t on a desktop page. This mobile page looks sharp and requires no extra effort for the customer to learn more about the product.
