Making sites "mobile compatible" now seems vital

SPH:

But I don't know that small, DIYers should have to get involved in re-inventing the world wide web so large companies like Samsung can say that they have web capable phones. I feel that it is up to the phone makers to make their products capable of seeing the web in all of its glory. Not some minimalist, ugly, lowest-common denominator of what the web once was, or can yet be.Not a realistic expectation.. No one is expecting DIYers to "re-inventing the world wide web". A smartphone for example will never display websites in "all of its glory" on a 5" screen. It's just not possible.. There just isn't enough real estate in that small space to make most websites as they sit usable for the END USER.. Which is precisely why retailers like Amazon have a mobile version of their own site and a web app which resembles the mobile version of their site..

SPH:

Now I have noticed a few issues with our standard templates. Like Image Handler zoom on small images. That and things like Lightbox or even the basic Larger Photo can block things. Also our Size Chart links, which open in another window. But I'd have to turn on my bootstrap template to see if it's any better in that regard.That is the point that was being made.. Because of the form factor, screensize, and other factors, mobile devices will not interact with websites the same way a desktop monitor will.. Hence the need for sites optimized for a mobile device..

SPH:

But if customers are changing and do not really demand or even prefer nicer-looking, richer content sites, then we might as well just put up a html page with a column of products with perhaps paypal buttons.They never did "demand or even prefer nicer-looking, richer content sites".. that is a MISCONCEPTION.. what customers want is the ability to be able to find the merchandise they want at a price they want to pay for terms they can live with, from a company they can trust, and then be able to select their merchandise and complete their purchase in as fuss-free a manner as possible. This has NOTHING to do with what a site looks like, it has EVERYTHING to do with USABILITY. (they are not one and the same thing..) In my experience I've seen plenty of UGLY apps which users can't or won't give up easily because they LOVE the functionality..

DivaVocals:

They never did "demand or even prefer nicer-looking, richer content sites".. that is a MISCONCEPTION.. what customers want is the ability to be able to find the merchandise they want at a price they want to pay for terms they can live with, from a company they can trust, and then be able to select their merchandise and complete their purchase in as fuss-free a manner as possible. This has NOTHING to do with what a site looks like, it has EVERYTHING to do with USABILITY. (they are not one and the same thing..) In my experience I've seen plenty of UGLY apps which users can't or won't give up easily because they LOVE the functionality..

Bingo! I've said it many times, those folks that fuss with templates and spend their focus on them and change them and can't let it go will never get ahead because the true focus should be on USABILITY and clarity. Don't Make Me Think... the single most important mantra an ecommerce operator should have, that they repeat constantly throughout the building, tweaking, and refining of the site. Our main site is pretty plain-jane when it comes to looks, a lot of white and light colors to make the product images pop (in fact, we have been complemented repeatedly about how un-flashy our site is and how they appreciate it!), but super easy to find what you want, add to cart without common questions, and a simple and fast (FEC) checkout process. Coupled with bend-over-backwards and very prompt customer service and we're doing $1.5mil this year easily. All with a very, very basic layout. The main effort of an ecommerce operator should be usability with the look coming in a distant second.

I am looking very hard at the mobile templating. I don't own a smartphone, it's simply a phone, but my employees all have them and they all to a T say they don't like mobile sites since they are so limited vs standard sites. So I am not 100% sold but need to do more customer research and perhaps an A/B test with a usability study before I do anything. I do somewhat, but not completely, ascribe to the WWAD (what would Amazon do) philosophy, so that does add some weight to my consideration.

When I look at the metrics I see that we get a lot of sales on mobile devices already with our standard template. But our template is liquid so that may or may not help users. But looking at our site on an employee's phone it's not too bad. And they all say that even with the extra actions of zooming and such, they are used to it and it takes a second or less and doesn't impact their experience. So at this point, I am not sure exactly what we'll do, but I think I will certainly buy a mobile template and give it a spin on a clone of our main site on a dormant domain to see what it's like from start to finish of the buying experience.

DivaVocals:

They never did "demand or even prefer nicer-looking, richer content sites".. that is a MISCONCEPTION.. what customers want is the ability to be able to find the merchandise they want at a price they want to pay for terms they can live with, from a company they can trust, and then be able to select their merchandise and complete their purchase in as fuss-free a manner as possible. This has NOTHING to do with what a site looks like, it has EVERYTHING to do with USABILITY. (they are not one and the same thing..) In my experience I've seen plenty of UGLY apps which users can't or won't give up easily because they LOVE the functionality..

This is CERTAINLY PROVING TO BE TRUE in the many tests we are conducting.

The modern design for websites is entering a completely new phase, where MINIMAL is the preferred option. Even non-commercial sites are removing vast swathes of un-necessary clutter from their sites, and moving to a more LINEAR process (scrolling) where accordion-type "show/hide" features replace the function of sidebar and even header menus.

The EASIEST ACTION on a smartphone is vertical scroll, so it makes sense to embed "menu options" into the scroll. When a visitor reaches a section that needs "expanding", an accordion script opens up the detail, which is then read (or closed again) before the visitor scrolls further.

The cluttered look of "yesterday's webshops" home pages is giving way to this intuitive and "responsive" technique.

The nature of online shopping has changed quite a lot. The challenge is to LEVERAGE THE USER EXPERIENCE irrespective of what device they are using. Intuitive templates will automatically "reshape" the UX to be suitable to the resolution of the device viewing it, and will ALSO render the data in this "linear" mode.

When people view web content on their home computer, they use it DIFFERENTLY to when they view it on a mobile device (smart phone). They ADAPT their behaviour to suit the limitations of the device. Now the key is to know WHAT those ADAPTATIONS ARE... and to build a template that seamlessly transits between one form of user behaviour to the other.

lankeeyankee:

I am looking very hard at the mobile templating. I don't own a smartphone, it's simply a phone, but my employees all have them and they all to a T say they don't like mobile sites since they are so limited vs standard sites. So I am not 100% sold but need to do more customer research and perhaps an A/B test with a usability study before I do anything.

Yes, we have had the same response from our focus groups, but when we segment the group by age (18 to 22, 22 to 27, 27 to 35, 35 to 50, 50+) we find the younger ones more tolerant of the limitations, and more "skilled" at navigating around the "reduced" sites.

We had the most resistance from the 35 and above age groups, but not to the extent where they "significantly disliked" a particular mobile template. What they ALL LIKED was the removal of extraneous, distracting clutter. But is was very important to them that any "page" rendered on their mobile screen MUST IMMEDIATELY indicate it's purpose. (Basically this means if they get to a checkout page, and it's not clear that it is the checkout page, they are likely to abandon the purchase.)

Yes, Amazon's template looks like a gold standard. Too bad we all can't have one.

In the meantime, I just saw this tonight. We DIYers apparently wouldn't even have to roll up our sleeves:

http://www.prestashop.com/en/mobile-experience

lankeeyankee:

Bingo! I've said it many times, those folks that fuss with templates and spend their focus on them and change them and can't let it go will never get ahead because the true focus should be on USABILITY and clarity. Don't Make Me Think... the single most important mantra an ecommerce operator should have, that they repeat constantly throughout the building, tweaking, and refining of the site. Our main site is pretty plain-jane when it comes to looks, a lot of white and light colors to make the product images pop (in fact, we have been complemented repeatedly about how un-flashy our site is and how they appreciate it!), but super easy to find what you want, add to cart without common questions, and a simple and fast (FEC) checkout process. Coupled with bend-over-backwards and very prompt customer service and we're doing $1.5mil this year easily. All with a very, very basic layout. The main effort of an ecommerce operator should be usability with the look coming in a distant second.

I am looking very hard at the mobile templating. I don't own a smartphone, it's simply a phone, but my employees all have them and they all to a T say they don't like mobile sites since they are so limited vs standard sites. So I am not 100% sold but need to do more customer research and perhaps an A/B test with a usability study before I do anything. I do somewhat, but not completely, ascribe to the WWAD (what would Amazon do) philosophy, so that does add some weight to my consideration.

When I look at the metrics I see that we get a lot of sales on mobile devices already with our standard template. But our template is liquid so that may or may not help users. But looking at our site on an employee's phone it's not too bad. And they all say that even with the extra actions of zooming and such, they are used to it and it takes a second or less and doesn't impact their experience. So at this point, I am not sure exactly what we'll do, but I think I will certainly buy a mobile template and give it a spin on a clone of our main site on a dormant domain to see what it's like from start to finish of the buying experience.
Yep one of my BEST clients doesn't have the prettiest site in the world (it's certainly not the ugly green Classic Zen Cart template either) but his products are easy to find, the checkout process is a simple, smooth, UNCLUTTERED experience (we'll soon be replacing FEAC with COWOA with usability/consistency updates I am making), and he spends his time constantly improving his CONTENT not constantly changing his TEMPLATE.

This un-assuming looking site was JUST short of the $1.5mil mark in sales last year, and if his 1st month sales are any indication, he is on track to exceed his 1st quarter earnings from last year.. He is the first client I shall be evaluating the mobile experience for as he is an iPad and iPhone user and spends a bit of time on his site on both devices. We are probably going to use the iPhone as our proving ground as the screensize on this device is the real challenge to conquer in terms of user experience. I too am doing this in the WWAD frame of mind.. I see that they do indeed have a separate mobile experience, and I suspect they do it for the reasons raised in this thread (usability). I am torn between auto detecting the device and serving up a mobile enabled template versus a responsive template. I'm leaning toward the mobile specific template, but a responsive template would certainly ensure that I only have to update one place to accommodate all user interactions.. Certainly my clients and I will be doing some testing to see what works best for their customers..

SPH:

We DIYers apparently wouldn't even have to roll up our sleeves
You don't have to now.. there are inexpensive mobile template available for Zen Cart right now.. But if FREE is important, then certainly Presta Shop is an option..

A story I've told before, but goes to show how "prettiness" is not essential.

About 4 or 5 years ago we were approached by a frantic businessman who had been let down by a "foreign" (cheap) freelancer, who he'd contracted to build a zencart site.

He was in the process of importing a huge volume of Xmas gadgets and had the advertising ready to break in scores of regional newspapers and local media across the UK.

With a WEEK TO GO before the advertising appeared, he had no website - just a domain registered.

He approached us on the Friday afternoon and we quickly concluded a contract to develop the site. He emailed over the general graphics he's had done for his advertising and we quickly created a logo. we sent him an easy-populate sample file and told him to have his equivalent ready by the monday. We also told him to send us all product images (which he did on a CD).

Over the weekend we arranged hosting, repointed the NS, installed ZC, applied his logo to classic template, changed the "puke-green" colours in classic to a navy blue.

On the Monday we loaded the easy-pop file and sent the images to the server. We then did all the necessary configs for shipping, payment etc.

By Monday night we had a functioning shop that looked exactly like "CLASSIC" template - except that it was blue not green.

On the following Friday the advertising broke and by Friday close of play, over 200 orders had been received and processed.

And it just went upwards from there...

When we later proposed that he changed the look to something "more modern" he said "Why? It's doing just fine... don't try to fix what aint broke".

In the time we maintained the site, it retained this "classic" template and we never did anything to improve it. No add-ons (except image handler), no cross-sell mods, no fancy image sliders, no trinkets... Plain vanilla zencart on plain vanilla classic template.

He made substantial money from this site, and eventually sold the business.

He spent a LOT of money on press and magazine advertising... and the sales just kept coming...

Perhaps a rep from JSWeb could join the discussion and alert us to the benefits of their offerings and how they stack up with others.

Not sure that we can to be honest as debate on a commercial basis is normally discouraged here. Hopefully this is acceptable to answer the question.

The version for sale on our site is that from UltimateZenCart. The module is a generic "template" and initially we priced it at £250 to cover the license fee we pay to UltimateZenCart, our time for installation and the basic configuration (modified logo, mobile friendly define_main_page etc - the module does not presently have the functionality to edit the define_pages via admin).

Many of our clients required additional changes and in effect, we were being asked to build a new template to match where possible the existing desktop view customisations. We therefore decided to re-price (as lankeeyankee noted) to give an all-in-one package. However, after a few days, we had a re-think as that is clearly a deterrent to those who will be quite happy to accept the default view and so we reverted to our original price a couple of days ago and our original process of considering the further customisation as additional work.

The vast majority of our clients come to us to "do the job", and our site is priced for them, not for those who are quite capable of doing things themselves. We do NOT charge for other people's software, except where that is a commercial offering and a license fee needs to be paid. All we charge for is our time. Indeed, any of the modules listed on our site that are freely available from the ZenCart plugins have that information on the product page, usually with a link to the appropriate download page at ZC.

DivaVocals:

You don't have to now.. there are inexpensive mobile template available for Zen Cart right now.. But if FREE is important, then certainly Presta Shop is an option..

Diva, free doesn't always have to be the major concern. But once we get into the commercial arena, there are many options out there. I suspect that there are many, probably affordable, commercial carts with basically everything one would need. Prestashop is the only FREE cart that I know of that advertises that it already comes with basically everything. I wonder if it all works as advertised. I say that because their latest cart version doesn't really work properly in my IE9 browser.

And I'd personally rather own my cart than just rent it.

schoolboy:

A story I've told before, but goes to show how "prettiness" is not essential.

A couple of years ago while surfing I came across an article about a guy making over one million dollars a year in ecommerce. When I got to his site it was a plain, Classic green template Zencart set at the default narrow width. Looked like an out-of-the-box zencart. Of course, as I recall, it was a wholesale site so perhaps there looks really are not that improtant.

Wonder if he's ever on the forums....

SPH:

A couple of years ago while surfing I came across an article about a guy making over one million dollars a year in ecommerce. When I got to his site it was a plain, Classic green template Zencart set at the default narrow width. Looked like an out-of-the-box zencart. Of course, as I recall, it was a wholesale site so perhaps there looks really are not that improtant.

Wonder if he's ever on the forums....
It's not a matter of wholesale versus retail.. what schoolboy and others have said, looks are not a VITAL part of the overall user experience.. Ease of use will always trump looks as far as a positive user experience is concerned..

SPH:

Diva, free doesn't always have to be the major concern. But once we get into the commercial arena, there are many options out there. I suspect that there are many, probably affordable, commercial carts with basically everything one would need. Prestashop is the only FREE cart that I know of that advertises that it already comes with basically everything. I wonder if it all works as advertised. I say that because their latest cart version doesn't really work properly in my IE9 browser.

And I'd personally rather own my cart than just rent it.Except I am not referring to commercial carts.. I am referring to commercial modules for Zen Cart. As far as mobile templates (the topic of this dicussion) are concerned there ARE commercial options available for those who wish to include mobile capabilities for their shops and do not have the skillset to create their own. As has been pointed out, free options for mobile may not be readily available soon. For those who don't want to invest in commercial Zen Cart modules, then certainly PrestaShop is a possible free cart that one could consider..

And we can also wait for zencart 1.6.0 and the new responsive default template. I'm thinking that that probably should be the template others are made off of.

SPH:

And we can also wait for zencart 1.6.0 and the new responsive default template. I'm thinking that that probably should be the template others are made off of.Perhaps, but that still remains to be seen.. Not an assumption I would make though as all templates today are NOT based off of Classic.. I do think that ultimate_zc hit the nail on the head with his post..

ultimate_zc:

Expecting for someone to build a suite of free mobile compatible templates is not something I would wait for. If you spend a little bit of time doing some research you'll find a variety of either mobile templates, mobile apps and or responsive web design themes available. As opposed to a desktop theme which can be easily built by modifying the stylesheet, a mobile and/or responsive theme done right requires a large amount of modification to a large amount of files.

I'm very familiar with Zen Cart, not from the functional perspective like several good zenners that know how to write php code like "That Software Guy" but rather from the template design perspective. I guess you can say I know how to paint the vehicle, but leave the engine problems to the mechanics.

A mobile design in my opinion requires learning how to use any of many frameworks available such as bootstrap, zurb, skeleton, jgMobi, jQuery Mobile, Sencha, jQtouch etc... and it is really time consuming.

Had a nice chat with my client today and he agrees that exploring mobile options TODAY is a smart plan.. He has no problem paying for a mobile template (like the ones on Ultimate Zen Cart) or a responsive template (like the ones on Zen4Me) since the prices are but a drop in the bucket. So we'll be making a purchase very soon..

As for simple, for awhile now I've been looking at the BlueCart template for another site I want to build. It is basically the Classic look with some enhancements. I do not plan on having much on it beyond Image Handler and Easy Populate. Don't even know if I'll go with the column layout for the product categories this time; just straight rows.

But I've been looking more at my free responsive template. It's pretty plain but has a nice look and feel. And it just might actually work. Too bad it has 30-40 validation errors. Hopefully they're not a deal-breaker with Google.

A toss-up perhaps.

SPH:

As for simple, for awhile now I've been looking at the BlueCart template for another site I want to build. It is basically the Classic look with some enhancements. I do not plan on having much on it beyond Image Handler and Easy Populate. Don't even know if I'll go with the column layout for the product categories this time; just straight rows.

But I've been looking more at my free responsive template. It's pretty plain but has a nice look and feel. And it just might actually work. Too bad it has 30-40 validation errors. Hopefully they're not a deal-breaker with Google.

A toss-up perhaps.

Most validation errors are easy enough to fix.. You should take a swing at it..

Out of curiosity, is the analytic date recording who uses mobile templates on their mobile device and who reverts to the desktop view on their mobile device.
Because, (just adding my 2p worth in), I almost always revert/look for the 'desktop' view when I browse the web on my Galaxy S2.

I find most Mobile templates are annoying and information 'poor' when using sites like Amazon, Play, M&S. Even when I use my phone to read forum posts here I get annoyed with the mobile version and revert to desktop.

But I am but just one person...... I am not saying everyone is like me! I am just questioning if your data includes 'luddites' like me who use their phones to browse/buy a lot, but have a good enough device to comfortably use desktop view on it...... ...... .......

*(with exception to ebay!! as their site is awful to use on my phone and their 'mobile' template is equally pants! I always use their Android App as that's a great piece of software) *

ray-the-otter:

Because, (just adding my 2p worth in), I almost always revert/look for the 'desktop' view when I browse the web on my Galaxy S2.

I find most Mobile templates are annoying and information 'poor' when using sites like Amazon, Play, M&S. Even when I use my phone to read forum posts here I get annoyed with the mobile version and revert to desktop.

You are not the only one :hug: I am also almost always switching to the desktop version. What annoys me is when a site doesn't give me the choice between which version I want to use and forces me to use the mobile template.
But like Ray said, it may be just a very few thinking this way. :laugh:

Design75:

You are not the only one I am also almost always switching to the desktop version. What annoys me is when a site doesn't give me the choice between which version I want to use and forces me to use the mobile template.

I don't think enough data is being (has been) collected on this - but it is a critical issue for eCommerce... EVERYTHING has to be designed around the end-user...

schoolboy:

I don't think enough data is being (has been) collected on this - but it is a critical issue for eCommerce... EVERYTHING has to be designed around the end-user...
nods in agreement:yes: