DESKTOP VERSUS MOBILE SHOPPING CART
Most conventional shopping carts create catalogs and ordering process suited
to the big screens of desktops and laptops. The pages are generally images
and style heavy. They also carry more tables, JavaScript and Ajax to
make them easier and more pleasing to navigate.
These pages do not appear well on the small screens of mobiles. The download
times are longer as well.
On the mobiles, the customers access a website when they are ready to order
like, for example, a bunch of flowers, a card, a takeaway meal, a restaurant
booking, etc. They are not going to the website by a Google search. The
sites are generally the ones they have dealt with before and they do not
need to learn more about the company, its product range and so on.
The customer just needs an easy and quick ordering process.
A site that is suited to the big screens is a pain to work with on the
mobiles. The iPhone and Android may make the pages still navigable, but on a
BlackBerry and other feature phones most pages are virtually impossible.
Even on the iPhone and Android, a site that offers quick navigation has an
advantage over others. This is so because the download speed may not always
be good in every location, or at times of day, even if the phone has 3G or
WiFi enabled.
The page is expected to provide the following good user experience when
using a mobile to order something...
- Quick loading of pages.
- Instant display of selected products.
- Ability to go back and forth between categories, products and order form.
- Quick response when adding to cart and when going to checkout.
- Selectable options and defaults, instead of typing in all details.
- Login feature to recall customer and card details.
- Card details never downloaded. Instead, show only the last 4 digits.
- Fast (but not instant) order submission and acknowledgement.
- Orders sent to the owner in email and/or SMS
- Acknowledgment sent to customer in email and/or SMS
- Owner admin interface via mobile or desktop.
For more details see the
FAQs page
