Mobile is top retailer priority in 2015, according to Shop.org/Forrester
Washington, D.C. -- Mobile is the top priority for retailers in 2015, according to the 2015 Shop.org/Forrester Research Inc., State of Retailing Online, with 58% of surveyed retailers placing it at the top of their list, up from 53% last year.
The survey found smartphone sales as a percentage of online sales grew from 8% in 2013 to 12% in 2014, an increase of 50%. Tablets’ share of the pie also grew from 13% of online sales in 2013 to 16% in 2014.
At the same time, digital marketing budgets remain modest. Of those retailers surveyed 32% report spending less than $100,000 on their smartphone development efforts in 2014; 68% report spending less than $1 million on smartphone developments last year. When it comes to tablets, just 4% say they invested between $100,000 and $250,000 last year. But eight-in-10 surveyed plan to increase their mobile budgets by at least 20% in 2015.
In other survey highlights:
• Forty-five percent of those surveyed hope to improve or invest in programs like buy online-pick up in store, ship-from-store and inventory visibility, up significantly from 26% who listed omnichannel efforts as a priority last year.
• Nearly four-in-10 (38%) surveyed say marketing optimization was their third priority for 2015, which includes initiatives around customer retention and acquisition.
• More than half (56%) of retailers surveyed say that apps are not a key component of their mobile marketing strategy, and an even greater percentage agree apps are not critical to their employee strategy either.
“Apps are simply too expensive to build and maintain for most retailers, begging the question – what’s after apps?” says Forrester Research VP and principal analyst Sucharita Mulpuru. “We’ll see retailers focus spending on redesigning the core site, which benefits the site experience beyond mobile, and embracing responsive design - an approach that retailers favor over apps, with nearly half already applying it to their mobile site.”
