Dick Smith recently announced the launch of their new mobile website, we’ve had a good look at the site’s capability and functionality and were also interested to read the comments made by Daniel McMahon, Head of eCommerce at Dick Smith in a recent interview with Power Retail. Dick Smith have been watching the growth of handset sales through their own shops and the growth in the percentage of customers using mobile devices to browse Dick Smith’s website.
Dick Smith analysed customer behaviour and identified that most customers on their site use their mobile to research products. The mobile site has been designed to meet this primary need.
A key decision any retailer needs to make when defining their mobile strategy is whether to create a mobile website, a mobile app or potentially both. Dick Smith decided to build a mobile website to provide mobile access for the range of handsets being used online, ensuring they provide mobile access to the broadest range of mobile customers.
The Dick Smith mobile homepage is dominated by a list of offers and on site search. Mobile has obvious limitations to present large amounts of data or extensive directory structures. On site Search helps customers find products quickly and easily and is key to an effective customer experience on a site with a large range of products and categories.
A full range of products are available through the mobile site and information such as customer reviews and store stock levels can be accessed from the product pages as well as product information and specs. All provide the customer with information they look for prior to making a purchase.
Social Sharing is provided on product pages allowing sharing to Facebook, Twitter and email. Click and Collect allows customers to reserve and collect the product in a store of their choice when it’s in stock. The store locator allows customers to identify the nearest store quickly using their mobile location and can be used in conjunction with click and collect.
Mobile Commerce hasn’t been implemented by Dick Smith, if you select to purchase a product you are taken to the full website. If a customer wants to order a product for delivery they would be better advised to do this using a computer rather than on a mobile device.
All in all we think the Dick Smith mobile website is a good step for the retailer and timely given the huge number of mobile users in Australia and the opportunity this brings to fill customer needs. Dick Smith haven’t implemented other key items like video or other rich media, the ability to sign up for emails, access your account or links to check out Dick Smith on social media. We hope these features and full mobile commerce are in their plans for the future.
It is better that a retailer meets at least one customer need (in this case, the need for research) rather than wait until they can fill them all and we are really happy to see Dick Smith lead the way and hope this jolts some of the other high profile retailers to meet customer mobile needs.