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 that while 70 percent of the brands surveyed have apps, those apps have been “blind investments in iOS apps 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. 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 two 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 such as L2 are taking the 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 percent 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 if 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.
Seth Kaplan is president of Mobile Real Estate ID.
For more information, visit www.mobilerealestateid.com.
