Around the Net
The Solution To Fat Thumbs: A Buy Button
- The New York Times, Tuesday, July 7, 2015 11:41 AM
Several companies, including Google, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest, are trying to defeat the mobile conversion monster by including “buy” buttons on their mobile sites, similar to Amazon’s “one-click purchase.”
Adam J. Epstein, president of adMarketplace, told TheNew York Times, “In mobile, it’s mobile versus desktop, and if you want to drive transactions, you have to make it simpler than a desktop.”
Many mobile users have complained about “fat thumbs” or hard-to-fill-out purchasing and shipping forms on Web sites. The introduction of a buy button could be a game-changer. “Mobile phones are projected to account for about half the time Americans spend online this year, but only about one-fifth of retail e-commerce sales, according to eMarketer," notes the NYT.
Mobile advertisers have a hard time measuring ROI on their ads, but closing the loop on product research and purchase would allow them to track conversions more easily, raising the price of ads. Other long-term effects remain to be seen, but advertisers are hopeful that simplification can be a solution to low mobile conversions.
