It’s the holiday season! A magical time of year for family, giving back, and competitive shopping like it’s a professional sport. This is a critically important time of year for many businesses, and most depend on success this season so much that their very survival hinges on the revenue generated in Q4. This is especially true of retail stores on Black Friday and increasingly, mobile e-commerce websites on Cyber Monday.

While Black Friday has a long history as the biggest shopping day of the year, the shift to online shopping has transformed Cyber Monday in “Cyber Week”, with deals rolling out for consumers well into December. Cyber Monday may have risen from desktop browsing, but today’s consumer is making their holiday purchases on their smartphone. Online shopping companies at the leading edge of their field are employing groundbreaking mobile marketing tactics to drive impressive sales this holiday season. This is of pivotal importance for smaller e-commerce businesses to recognize, as their mobile optimization and user experience is now a driving factor for profit margins during the most important fiscal time of the year.

Online shopping strategies are revolving around the revolution of mobile e-commerce with impressive results. For example, 78% of mobile searches for local business information result in sales, making mobile optimization a top priority from for local digital marketing efforts. 75% of mobile shoppers have used a digital coupon, making promotions a necessity for mobile e-commerce advertising strategy.

So what are the elite e-commerce businesses doing this Cyber Monday to drive holiday shoppers toward the “buy now” button? Let’s examine five innovative mobile e-commerce trends for “Cyber Week” 2016.

This has been a widespread trend for years now, but the mobile holiday shopping boom on Cyber Monday has brought this tactic into the light. Furthermore, Google recently announced an upcoming “mobile-first” index, meaning that even desktop users will receive search results based on a mobile-based  ranking algorithm. If your e-commerce site is not designed for mobile, not only it will not be relevant, but your customers will not do their online shopping with your business. The latest research shows nearly half of web users expect a site to load in under 2 seconds and will most likely exit your digital storefront before the 3-second mark. 79% of them will never return to an e-commerce site after encountering performance issues, and nearly half would mention the experience to a friend.

Searchability must be optimized, UX must be fast and flawless, and the mobile e-commerce interface must be extremely user-friendly for online shoppers. This isn’t just true of Cyber Monday or Cyber Week, it’s essential all year long.

While online shopping apps have become an increasingly popular trend in the world of mobile e-commerce, they are not a necessity for many companies or imperative like mobile web design and search optimization. However, when utilized correctly, mobile shopping apps can be a great way to drive loyalty and spark authentic brand engagement, as they’re a natural medium for connecting with your customers during the holidays. Rather than serving as a streamlined mobile e-commerce shopping experience, many brands build mobile apps for starting conversations, using beacon technology, push messages, and opt-in data collection for real-time consumer interaction.

Mobile payment has become the new go-to method for establishing a seamless online shopping experience. While mobile payment has not taken off as a mainstream e-commerce innovation like some predicted in 2016, it is gaining ground as an easy way for customers to click and buy via retailers’ apps instantly and repeatedly. Mobile wallets like Android Pay, Apple Pay, and Google Wallet are not used for many web-based mobile transactions but their integrated convenience, when stored in a secure shopping app, has caused smartphone users to make frequent purchases in this manner. Starbucks already drives 16% of its total transactions from payments via its mobile app, a great example of how repeat customers who are loyal to a brand will make the switch for a more convenient shopping experience.

Geofencing is a hot new mobile marketing trend this holiday season, utilizing mobile beacon technology to draw customers from the mobile device to a physical location. The practice of geofencing is not well known or widely employed yet, but there are endless opportunities for mobile e-commerce businesses in the near future. In our increasingly mobile age, geofencing has become a powerful marketing frontier where apps can use a smartphone’s GPS to determine the geographical location of a user and send push messages based on physical proximity data. Say a potential customer is walking by a business and has downloaded their branded mobile app. With geofencing, that app could send a notification to the user via push messaging with an enticing Cyber Week promotion, causing the customer to enter the store. Beacon technology allows digital business to transform traditional e-commerce into a physical shopping engagement platform in real time.

E-commerce influencers and online shopping giants like Amazon are already using the #BlackFriday and #CyberMonday hashtags to advertise holiday shopping discounts on Twitter. Facebook is planning e-commerce integration in their messenger app. Instagram just rolled out social selling buttons for businesses. Sales and mobile e-commerce referral traffic are increasing at a faster rate on social media than any other online channel today, and this trend is set to continue for holiday seasons to come.

Just as Black-Friday-brawling in the toy aisle caused a shift away from holiday shopping in person, the amazing rise of mobile device technology has driven online shopping away from the desktop. Mobile sales just surpassed desktop purchases on Cyber Monday, and expect that figure to increase for the foreseeable future. If your e-commerce business has not already started shifting digital marketing efforts toward the all-important mobile focus of the future, it was time to begin yesterday.

Start with the basics.

• Optimize your website for mobile search algorithms that become more critical to local SERP relevancy every day.
• Incorporate longtail keywords into your content strategy and consider natural, conversational phrases optimized for voice search.
• Once optimized for search engines, optimize the digital interface of your site for mobile users.

Today’s e-commerce experience must be designed for mobile devices, and the easier it is for customers to make a purchase from your site, the more likely you are to succeed.

Need help making your e-commerce website mobile-friendly this holiday season?

Contact us to make sure you take advantage of the highly profitable opportunities for your business during Cyber Week this year and every year.

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