With m-commerce becoming the trend, more online store owners have started to realize the importance of going mobile. Having a robust presence on smartphones is a good way of capturing a huge number of shopping enthusiasts. Not only it widens your reach but increases your online visibility. As per Google’s “mobile-first” algorithm, a smartphone compatible website is imperative for reaching the top of SERP’s and this makes mobile optimization a must for your e-commerce venture. Now the question arises -- how to take your e-commerce business on m-commerce route?  As ecommerce store owner you have 3 options to embark your journey:

• Responsive Website
• Mobile Apps
• Mobile Optimized Website

Although ecommerce businesses can have both mobile friendly website and app, but you would require making a choice due to financial and time constraints. So it’s best to select one which can give your business best of benefits. A comparison between these would give you a clear picture.

Mobile Optimized Website

Like the name suggest, any webpage that’s completely optimized for running seamlessly on smartphones. Factors like screen size, limited connection speed, and touch point interactions are kept in mind while optimizing a site, although this option has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Pros

• • Optimization assures enhanced user experience based on opportunities and challenges of smartphone platform
  • The page load time increases at remarkable speed
  • Immediately accessible through browsers, with no requirement to download and install
  • Website ranking in local search results get enhanced
  • The pricing is good in comparison to the other available options

Cons

• The website maintenance becomes tough as you need to look after two.
• Optimization does not make a website compatible universally, as it may not work equally well on various devices
• Moreover website requires some extra SEO efforts.

Responsive Website

A responsive website is suitable for challenge of running the website on a variety of devices. This kind of website automatically repositions content on the basis of device size for providing excellent user experience on any computer, tablet, or smartphone.

Pros:

• The best thing is that you have to maintain a single site
• A single URL reduces the page loading time
• It facilitates the SEO process and Google simply adores it
• Cost of development, marketing, and maintenance of these websites is effectively cheaper

Cons:

• It uses advanced technology and outdated devices might not experience full benefits
• The different view of same website across various devices might confuse users and have a negative impact on conversions

Mobile Apps

A mobile app is specifically created to seamlessly run an e-commerce store on the smartphone. The user needs to download and install app on smart phone before using it. These apps offer great flexibility as it uses the best smartphone features such as touch navigation, cameras, GPS, and more.

Pros:

• It gives an excellent go experience to users along with enhanced functionalities
• They can be accessed offline even without an internet connection
• These serve as powerful branding tools as users have higher visibility of the brand logo on the app store or device screen

Cons:

• It is a complex task to separate apps for different operating systems such as iOS, Android etc.
• The complexity of the process makes it expensive too
• Extra efforts need to be invested in marketing and promotion of the app
• These apps is not an easy job as every update needs to be submitted to the app store for approval

Which Option Would Work For You?

Now that all the options have been compared successfully, it is important to choose wisely among them. You have to consider business goals as well to take the call. Factors like budget and industry trend are also there. For larger enterprises, both a mobile site and app are required whereas smaller ones need to decide whether to choose a responsive website or a smartphone app. They can start with anyone and then add the other to their portfolio as they grow in future.