When visitors become customers

© Klarna

Transparency and customer orientation as key success factors in M-Commerce and Online-Shops.

An Expert Comment by Christian Renk, Manging Director of Klarna Austria. Mobile commerce, that is, shopping with a tablet and a Smartphone, is the next revolution in commerce - and, in fact, we are right in the middle of it: According to the last representative survey "Mobile Communications Report" by MindTake Research, about two-thirds of Austrians use a Smartphone for shopping-relevant information and more than every third person has mobile-shopped in 2015. Interesting in these figures is the discrepancy between the high number of users who get information by mobile devices in the network and the comparatively small number of people who actually buy through mobile devices. Traders are obviously not able to motivate visitors to their website to a final purchase.

Comfortably and securely
One possible explanation could be the deficits of online merchants in mobile use: The study "Success Factor Checkout Optimization" by ibi research at the University of Regensburg revealed that the online trade has not yet set its sights on mobile customers. Nearly half of the web-shops are not optimized for mobile devices. Mobile optimization means, above all, that the presentation of the shop is designed for use on mobile devices. Even more important for customers is the possibility to buy comfortably and securely via mobile devices and without drawn-out registration or payment processes. It is guaranteed that consumers will leave an online shop very quickly if these processes take too long.

Customer behaviour in the webshop
In addition to long or cumbersome processes, the selection of payment methods at the virtual till, also called the checkout. is also crucial. Here, traders should provide the customer exactly the types of payment that they would expect and which they trust. Still, online merchants are losing more than half of the potential buyers at the checkout because the customer's desired and known payment method is not offered. The shop operator should therefore constantly analyse customer behaviour in their Webshop. This is worthwhile in many cases: Use of large online shops shows that a successful optimization increases the conversion rate and thus the turnover in the checkout area by up to 40 percent. Those who rely on an external payment service providers do not only profit from their expertise. Some providers also accept the risks from payment and fraud. It is therefore sensible to invest in the checkout - so visitors become customers.