It’s
a good day when your customers start shopping via tablets, because they open up
the possibility for a new, more engaging shopping experience than PCs or smart
phones. Tablets provide convenience and
simplicity that PCs don’t. Tablets
provide a bigger view of your catalog and products that mobile phones
can’t. It’s a good day when your
customers start shopping via tablets, but when is that day and will you be
ready?
Apple
iPad was introduced in April 2010. By the end of 2012, there will be an
estimated 50 million tablet users in the United States, with projections for
continued double-digit growth in subsequent years. If your customers are professionals under
the age of 35, they are likely using tablets now. If your customers aren’t using tablets now,
it’s a good bet they soon will be.
Current high rates of consumer adoption and projections for continued
brisk growth is the first reason why now is the time to include tablet in your
eCommerce strategy.
Today,
Apple’s iPad and Android tablets are numbers one and two in market share. In the coming months, Microsoft is expected
to release its Windows 8 operating system.
Windows 8 is not only for PCs. It
is designed from the ground up with tablets and touch screens in mind. Regardless of whether Apple, Android, or
Microsoft tablets win in the market, the stream of product and marketing
investment from three strong providers will spur more excitement and deliver
more value. The strengthening push from
tablet providers and the related market excitement is the second reason why now
is the time to include tablet in your eCommerce strategy.
Including
tablets in your eCommerce strategy means making a plan for a shopping
experience that is designed with tablet in mind. The first step in any plan for the shopping
experience is to understand the customer perspective. In the case of tablets, this means knowing
how quickly your specific customers are adopting tablets and how they use
them. Generally speaking, younger
professionals are adopting tablets more quickly now, but touch screen
simplicity and low price point will bring the tablet to a wider range of
ages and incomes than PCs.
With
an understanding of the customer’s view of tablets, a plan for integrating
tablets into the shopping experience addresses:
- Touch screen – Touch screens of tablets let customers interact with the shopping experience more quickly and easily than PCs. It’s a whole new world of shopping speed and ease that means customers can act more quickly, easily, intuitively.
- Shop anywhere – The wireless nature of tablets lets customers shop anywhere in their home, office, coffee shop, and with cellular data service, anywhere in between. The shop-anywhere aspects of tablets means customers can act as needs or impulse arise, without opening up a laptop or getting to a desktop.
- One-handed operation – Tablets present an on-screen keyboard that can be used with two hands, but sometimes tablets are held in one hand while the other hand navigates. Tablet shopping experiences can include interactions best undertaken with two-handed typing (e.g., registration), but should also embrace one-handed navigation for repeated interactions (e.g., product selection)
- Right-sized screen – Tablets provide more visual and input real-estate than a smart phone, but less than a PC. The shopping experience should be planned to show the number and size of products and options appropriate for the tablet, and increasingly offer “same-screen actioning” that allows them to take quick touch-screen action on displayed products.
- Other factors – As they evolve, new aspects of the tablet experience need to be integrated into your strategy. For example, as network speeds increase, video, real time community interactions, and game-like features are likely to become increasingly important. As magazines and newspapers become increasingly electronic, integrating shopping experiences with those electronic publications will present new opportunities for on-line sales.
