Will your app survive this Christmas shopping season?

E-commerce is developing rapidly. More and more mobile applications for e-commerce are being released every day to make shopping online more convenient and handy. Nevertheless, in the process of developing a mobile application for e-commerce there are some nuances and potential issues that should be taken into account so that your app would be useful and handy when launched on any device and any platform.

See below the potential issues that the users of mobile applications for e-commerce can face, especially on Christmas holidays.

Issue #1. Screen size is not suitable for online shopping.

You say:

• It is almost impossible to display entirely all the relevant information on the small screens of mobile devices.
• The filter tools are not important for my app users, as well as the product comparison tool.

If so, you would be surprised how quickly your competitors will conquer the market this season.

You should consider providing relevant information and perfect usability for your mobile users. Otherwise, they will consider your competitors, who took care of thorough usability testing.

Issue #2. Vague terminology in navigational elements.

Because of the small size of the screen of smartphones, every word in e-commerce mobile application should be chosen very carefully.

Make sure to test your users’ behavior and the way they use your navigation, how they react on your action buttons and how clear your terminology is. Also, don’t forget to test your application on devices with different dpi. You don’t want your action button to be almost invisible on a new iPhone 6 Plus, do you?

Issue #3. Digital keyboard is not used when it is needed.

It is always uncomfortable to enter any data on the mobile device. You can stick to the general rule: the more information the visitors should enter, the more people will interrupt the process of buying. This led to the emergence of the popular methods of saving the number of touches. A common mistake is to abandon the numeric keypad, prompting the client to fill in the digital information.

Issue #4. Items that cannot be activated confuse the customers.

Interfaces of smartphones and tablets are built around the idea of direct manipulation. Typically, any information on the screen can be activated by touch, can be moved or edited. But sometimes this principle is violated, and apps display static information which cannot be activated by touch.

Leverage each pixel to bring the most of the user interaction.

Why each of those small issues can ruine your business this Christmas?

You can actually live with each of those issues in regular days. But not on Christmas holidays.

According to the IBM research, mobile sales accounted for 40% of all online sales last Christmas. This means that you loose about 40% of revenue over the hottest sales season of the year. Moreover, since we expect a continuous growth in online Christmas shopping, you will lose even more.

How to avoid the revenue loss related to online Christmas shopping

In order to avoid the numerous issues associated with the use of mobile applications for e-commerce, first of all you should think of finding a skilled and professional team of testers who would be able to test thoroughly and carefully your mobile app in order to understand how it works for each individual user, and what issues may face customers the height of the use of mobile applications, which usually falls on Christmas holidays.

Sound decision in this situation will be the usage of Ubertesters services. Ubertesters – an innovative platform for the testing the mobile applications. This service allows to solve a number of issues of all actors of the mobile application testing process, greatly facilitating its management and control, while providing the opportunity to engage testers from all corners of the Earth.

By means of using this platform, the testing process is speeded up by more than 60%, while all the issues can be easily recorded and reproduced. The platform provides the ability to create the most complete record of the bugs in the minimum amount of time.

How Ubertesters can help you to get ready to online Christmas shopping:

• Ubertesters will test your app in any country that you specify. Launching on a new market? Test your app carefully to keep your risks at the low level when launching on Christmas Eve.
• Choose a range of mobile devices used by your targeted audience. Ubertesters will ensure that your app works smoothly on each of them.
• Curious about the way your app looks on a new iPhone 6 Plus? Don’t guess – test it today with Ubertesters!
• Bring your app’s usability to perfection with a comprehensive feedback from professional usability testers.

In this article we discussed the most common usability issues that we noticed in the e-commerce mobile applications. But every application and every market is unique. You can identify a virtually unlimited number of minor bugs that need to be found and gradually corrected. The configuration process for personal computers took years; there is no reason to believe that the similar process for all mobile devices will be faster. You need to be patient and actively test the application to understand where and why a user has a problem.

Save money and make sure that your e-commerce mobile application will survive this Christmas season. Contact Ubertesters and get your free quote right away! Use a promo code XMAS2014 to get a discount!