How Many Clicks Does it Take…
Posted by Jennifer on Friday, November 8th, 2013 and filed under
We live in an instant world. Think about it. Starbucks sells instant coffee packets for those people who just hate to wait. We can buy music and books online at the click of a button and begin enjoying them immediately. It’s no wonder that consumers are losing patience with slow e-commerce sites that haven’t kept up with the demands of the mobile marketplace.
Recently, GimmeAnother began its Mobile Usability Index testing to see just how long it takes—and how cumbersome it is—to purchase items on popular e-commerce sites using a smartphone or tablet. The results have been surprising.
How slow is slow?
On a membership-only warehouse club site it took Kevin Cullum, GimmeAnother’s operations manager, one minute and 14 seconds to complete a transaction. That transaction took a total of 14 clicks to finalize. This is unacceptable for one of the top ten retailers in the United State and in the world.
In another test, Kevin made a purchase on a popular health and nutrition retailer website. Checkout took one minute and 30 seconds and required nine clicks. This company offers customers the ability to create a profile for faster orders; however, doing so is anything but fast. “I was initially unable to find where to save my credit card info, which slowed the entire process,” Kevin says. “The app sent me to black screens often. I needed to click ‘back’ multiple times in order to resume my checkout.”
Solutions for speed
Retailers have to eliminate glitches and streamline the checkout process or risk losing online customers. And it’s no longer enough to just have a mobile optimized site. “That still means too many clicks,” explains Kevin. Even worse, retailers who don’t have an app or a mobile optimized site are way behind the game. “Zooming in and navigating a website on my smartphone or tablet is a total pain,” Kevin adds, “and it completely turns me off as a mobile shopper.”
A mobile app can be a solution, but consumers shouldn’t have to download and wrangle an app for every retailer they patronize. That’s why GimmeAnother created a one-stop-shop app that allows customers to save their favorite products and access them later for a quick re-order. “Ultimately, we allow consumers to save all sorts of products to one central location where they can purchase things in a flash,” Kevin says.
Stay tuned for more of GimmeAnother’s Mobile Usability Index reports. How does your website stack up?
