Survey: Site search, SEO and m-commerce biggest priorities in 2013

San Jose, Calif. -- Nearly half (40%) of retailers will add a mobile version of their website in 2013, with 20% planning to create a mobile app, according to the "2012 ECommerce Trends Survey,” a survey of nearly 500 global retailers conducted by SLI Systems. Retailers’ biggest challenges in e-commerce continue to be improving conversions (63%) and attracting more customers to their websites (61%), the survey revealed. As such, retailers plan to address these challenges by upgrading or changing their e-commerce platforms (18%), improving site search functionality (18%) and SEO efforts (17%) and solidifying mobile commerce strategies (15%).



Retailers took a number of actions this year in preparation for the 2012 holiday shopping season, the survey found. More than 40% increased their SEO efforts and focused on better merchandising capabilities, while better refinements and navigation (38%) and improvements to ensure more relevant site search (34%) also topped the list of holiday website enhancements.



More than half of retailers (57%) have already posted Twitter feeds to their sites, as well as articles and press releases (56%), blog posts (53%) and videos (53%). In the coming year, retailers plan to add additional non-product features to drive sales, including how-to-information, more video options and blog posts.



To download the full survey and related infographic, go to www.sli-systems.com.