Take your web site mobile now

Michael Baker
April 17, 2013

The global personal computer market is in freefall. According to market research house International Data Corporation, worldwide personal computer shipments declined by 13.9 per cent in the first quarter of 2013 compared to the same quarter a year ago. It was the fourth consecutive quarterly loss.

The Asia Pacific region experienced a record 12.7 per cent decline in the first quarter.

The key problems in the PC market are not difficult to discern. Global tablet and smart phone sales are soaring as consumers shift their social networking, email, shopping, video gaming and other activities from PCs to the smaller portable devices.

Compounding the problem for PC makers has been the introduction of Windows 8 with its emphasis on touchscreen technology. This has not been warmly embraced by consumers, further slowing PC sales.

As PC sales implode and sales of smart phones and tablets rise by more than 50 per cent annually, the ability of retailers to provide a good shopping experience on mobile devices has become a matter of greater urgency. Retailers need to provide the same experience on the small screen as they do on the big one. Yet so far relatively few retailers have made the transition.

Red Pants has developed a technology to create non-transactional mobile sites for less than $200.

Wes Garth, founder of a Melbourne-based company called Red Pants Mobile Websites that designs and hosts mobile-friendly sites, says smart phone users have little patience for sites that are not adapted for the small screen. While fully transactional mobile e-commerce sites are typically expensive to build, Red Pants has developed a technology to create non-transactional mobile sites for less than $200. This kind of site can be a good choice for small businesses and not-for-profits that don’t require incessant changes to their website content. If necessary, the mobile site can incorporate a link to a company’s separate e-commerce site.

Garth explains his company’s technology targets a compromise between expensive high-end solutions that take months to create, and low-end solutions that are really just bandaids and may be as annoying to the mobile phone user as doing nothing at all.

One of these bandaid solutions is called ‘responsive design.’ Responsive design, in essence, crunches an existing desktop website into a slightly altered version suitable for viewing on a tablet or mobile screen. The result frequently has the same look and feel as the desktop parent.

Many retailers still haven’t yet gone to either the responsive design or the unique mobile site routes. This includes large fashion retailers like Cotton On and Bras N Things, whose mobile phone interfaces are the same as on the PC. The content has to be ‘pinched and squeezed’ by hand to make it fit the small screen, rendering the site clunky and indecipherable.

This can be perilous in a head-to-head competitive situation. For example, national auto parts retailer Autobarn has a mobile site that is a miniature version of the one that appears on a desktop PC. It is difficult or impossible to read unless the user expands the screen content with his or her fingertips.

In contrast, a competitor of Autobarn’s, Supercheap Auto, has a unique mobile site designed specifically for the smart phone user. The home page is completely distinct from the PC version. It is snappy, decipherable and functional.

Wes Garth of Red Pants believes non-mobile-friendly sites are a turn-off for consumers. They reduce the chances of making a sale and don’t do a whole lot to shine up a retailer’s brand either.

The numbers on declining PC usage and the growing popularity of mobile phones and tablets suggest Garth is onto something. This is an issue not just for retailers but all businesses, small, medium and large. Consumers have become an impatient lot, and will no longer tolerate businesses that make them work hard for their information – even if it’s just their fingers doing the work