House of Fraser launches mobile commerce site

An mobile commerce site has just been launched by department store chain House of Fraser. Robin Terrell, Executive Director of Multichannel/International, said: “The development of a mobile version of the House of

Fraser website is an important milestone for us. This is part of our multichannel proposition, to ensure that we enable our customers to shop with House of Fraser when and how it suits them.'

It comes as according to recent research, 10million people across the UK are using mobile commerce.

However the survey shows the bad news for retailers is that a staggering 83% of those consumers experienced problems when conducting mobile transactions.

The survey was commissioned by TeaLeaf, a provider of online customer experience management software and conducted by Harris Interactive.

Tealeaf’s research shows that as consumers are evermore adopting new ‘techy’ phones and adapting to clever software, they are expecting faultless experiences across all channels including when mobile shopping.

The impact of this the resulting negative effect for brands cannot be underestimated. 66% of respondents said if they experienced a problem conducting a mobile transaction, they would be less likely to buy from the same company via other purchase channels. Survey results also showed that, on average, mobile shoppers completed 4.4 transactions on a mobile device per month.

The problem seems to stem from the fact that although mobile commerce is a relatively recent new retail channel, consumer expectation is high due to user friendly mobile technology, whilst retailers haven’t yet caught up with the systematics. Unfortunately for retailers, the two massive trends of mobile and social commerce are hitting at roughly the same time, making it difficult to focus resources in a coherent roadmap.

According to separate research last year by US company, Forrester, ‘the mobile internet era isn’t around the bend but already here.’ They said, ‘business’s looking to develop destinations for their smartphone users need to approach the space with high uitility, good design and frequency of use of mind.’

The Tealeaf survey continued with nearly one in ten consumers saying if they had problems using mcommerce they would vow never to conduct a mobile transaction again.

Geoff Galat, CMO of Tealeaf summed up the findings; ‘everyone talks about the momentum in the mobile channel and customers continue to show an increasing appetite for carrying out transactions on these devices,’ He continues, ‘the research shows consumers are increasingly expecting the same high levels of customer experience they would on other online channels. But at present mobile consumers find the convenience of transacting anywhere is offset by unsatisfying and unproductive experiences. Mobile consumers are no more willing to tolerate poor experiences than customers accessing websites.’

However, even big department stores such as Debenhams are performing poorly on mcommerce sales.

Mcommerce experts are suggesting that retailers look at key areas; such as defining the portion of their sales they expect mobile to support for the next 24 months. And, that they spend time researching and experimenting in the field to formulate a multichannel shopping model. Mcommerce advisors are recommending retailers to focus on a scalable digital user experience that encompasses mobile phones, tablets, Ipads, interactive kiosks, and ecommerce sites. Location and immediacy of contact are also key elements to mobile shopping rather than in a stationary access context.

Retailers may be interested to know that 4.30pm was recorded as the busiest time for mobile internet usage in the UK.

It will be interesting to see how House of Fraser fares with their newly launched mobile site.