While actual purchasing of merchandise (especially physical goods) is in its infancy on smartphones, merchants have had no problem using their mobile phones for order notification and store monitoring.  Even before smartphones (with their accompanying apps and mobile browsers), merchants could have their order notifications sent to their cell phone by way of e-mail and SMS messaging.  Likewise, if they had monitoring software checking their site, they could also get e-mail and SMS alerts sent to their cell phones.

Now, with smartphones, there is even more functionality available to the merchant.  Of course, you could view your orders and your site from your phone’s browser, but this is not an optimal experience on such small screens.   Ideally, your shopping cart software will detect that you are on a mobile browser and change the view that it presents to you.

This view optimization was added to ShopSite in v10 sp2 (service pack 2). Below is a typical example of what a merchant might see when they log in to ShopSite from their computer.

Desktop View of Dashboard

On a mobile browser, this dashboard would provide too much information to display all at once.  The merchant would have to constantly pan left and right and up and down to try to read the screen.  But ShopSite can detect that a mobile browser is being used and display the information like this:

Mobile View of Dashboard Orders

Note the blue PC Site button in the upper-right, which changes the view from mobile to the usual browser view.  Typically, you would not want to switch between views, but it is provided as an option for those who do.  The latest orders are displayed with those that have not been previously viewed by the merchant.  In this example, the second one in the list (having an asterisk beside it, as well as being bolded) shows an order that has not been viewed before.  The orders are links and, in the mobile view, have an extra line between them, so you can clearly select the correct one, even if you have fat fingers like me!

If the merchant scrolls down, they will see the next section of the dashboard.

Mobile View of Dashboard Feeds and Backups

This next section shows when the last backups occurred, as well as when the last feed was uploaded to Google Product Search.  The merchant can continue to scroll down through each dashboard section that has been configured to be displayed.

In addition to the dashboard, viewing orders has also been optimized for mobile browsers.  First, here is an example of what a typical order would look like when viewed on a regular computer screen:

Desktop View of an Order

Again, this is too much information to easily display on a regular mobile browser screen, so ShopSite presents the order as follows:

Mobile View of Billing

The first thing to be displayed when viewing orders on your mobile phone is the billing information.  You can even click the e-mail address and send a message to the shopper from here.

Scrolling down, you’ll then see the Ship To and payment information.

Mobile View of Shipping

And, if you continue scrolling down, you get to the product information.

Mobile View of Ordered Product

Some mobile phones will allow you to view the information in landscape mode instead of portrait mode.  ShopSite will display correctly in both orientations, so you can view it however you are most comfortable.  Using a real-time payment gateway or PayPal express, you could even bill the order from your phone!

So far, ShopSite has only optimized the Dashboard and Order screens for mobile browsers.  You probably wouldn’t want to set up a store from your mobile phone, but if we get feedback that such a feature is wanted, then we’ll make sure to add it in a future release!

How would you like a netbook computer that ran on 4 AA batteries for almost 20 hours?  Back in the 80’s there was such a computer from Radio Shack (Tandy Corp) called the TRS-80 Model 100.  It was so revolutionary at the time, that today it ranks number 2 on PC World’s The 10 Most Important Laptops of All Time.

Journalists loved this computer.  It was light (only 4 pounds), had a “notepad” application for writing, and a built in modem so they could upload their stories to their editors.  It received many glowing reviews, in part, because journalists loved it so much.  From the reviews, one might have expected every family to have one of these devices.  But eventually, after the early adopters and journalists had obtained their copy of the Model 100, sales tailed off.  It turned out that, while this was a great machine for road warrior journalists, it did not meet the needs of the average family or even business users.

Last week, I blogged that you should “Watch Out for the Hype”.  Just as the earlier journalists loved to write about the Model 100 (as it fulfilled their needs), journalists today love to write and praise the newest thing.  You sell more articles when you talk about new stuff rather than old stuff.  Of course, this does not mean that their articles are incorrect, just that they may be a little overly optimistic.

One of the latest trends to be hyped is mobile ecommerce.  Yes, the iPhone and other smartphones have sold well.  And yes, people like to check prices from their phone and comparison shop.  But that does not mean that shoppers are ready to complete the online purchase from their cell phone.

This article from Internet Retailer indicates that 6% of smartphone users have shopped from their phone.  It is unclear in the article if by “shopped” they mean researched products and prices or actually checked out.  This other article from Internet Retailer indicates that just 2% of European online buyers purchase products from their mobile phones and only 5% say they are interested in doing so.  Does this mean that mobile commerce (m-commerce) is not going to be important or that it won’t grow?  Of course not!  But currently, it is a very small percentage of the total number of online sales.  It is good to be aware of m-commerce trends, but do not focus on those trends at the expense of traditional eCommerce channels and marketing efforts.