According to a recent study by New York-based research firm, L2, almost 50 percent of top fashion, beauty, hospitality, watches and jewelry and retail brands have “feeble” mobile initiatives. Their study focused on the most recognized brands with regards to their ability to meet consumer demands for the proper mobile experience.
Only two-thirds of the brands surveyed even have mobile optimized sites and a full third of those don’t allow consumers to shop (the desired feature for these brands). The study also notes while 70 percent of the brands surveyed have apps, those apps have been “blind investments in iOS app that lack utility and stickiness.”
On the contrary, within the real estate industry the top brands have made major strides in not only going mobile, but ensuring that the feature most desired, property search, is the primary focus of their mobile initiative. Take the New York tri-state area for example; there are over a half dozen companies I can name off the top of my head who have spent time, energy and resources ensuring that their consumers can access information in the proper format from their mobile device. For example, Houlihan Lawrence (www.houlihanlawrence.com), Rand Realty (www.RandRealty.com), Lois Schneider REALTOR® (www.LoisSchneiderRealtor.com) and Terrie O’Connor REALTORS® (www.TOCR.com) – if you visit any of these sites from your mobile device you will have an experience tailored specifically to you as a mobile user on your mobile device. Perhaps it’s time for you to follow the industry leaders and get on board with mobile if you haven’t already done so.
From a pure perception standpoint, mobile has been on the forefront of topics discussed at every major real estate conference over the past 2 years. Topics from mobile web to QR Codes, text messaging and apps have been a mainstay and for good reason. Most likely the same reason that companies like L2 are taking time to research the mobile initiatives of 100 of the top retail brands; mobile is growing faster than ever before!
Mobile devices accounted for 14.3 percent of web traffic on Black Friday and 9.8% of online sales in 2011. IDC estimates that more U.S.-based Internet users will access the Internet from their mobile device than their PC by 2015. That’s only three years from now—stop waiting to transition your brand and your business to the eyeballs of mobile consumers.
How can you tell you have a mobile website? One way would be to go to your website from your mobile Internet-enabled device. The other would be to go to www.testmysitenow.com from your web browser and test your website. Don’t wait until it’s too late.
