Rethink Before Considering Responsive Web Design

Forrester Research Inc., has estimated that the US e-retail sales will observe a compound growth rate of 10% in the next five years. According to the source (Forrester), it will be $370 billion by 2017. This is an encouraging figure for the eCommerce industry.

According to the projection of eMarketer Inc., the mobile devices will play an important role behind this growth. The forecast data shows that the US retail mobile commerce sales will grow up to $39 billion by 2013, which is 56.5% up compared to 2012, and has tripled in 2013 (Source: eMarketer). Both sources (Forrester & eMarketer) have indicated that the US retail mobile eCommerce is definitely on the upswing.

These statistics are certainly very well-known to every eCommerce entity. However, the biggest confusion that arises here is related to the web design. Few think that the mobile websites will deliver better results, and few believe that a responsive web design is the future of eCommerce industry.

2013 is known as the beginning of responsive website design by Mashable. There are approximately 232 different types of screens available for surfing the websites. This indicates that the website with a responsive design can serve all the users using different gadgets to browse the world of internet.

But, there are also various reasons also discovered which proved that the responsive design is not always the right choice when compared with the mobile optimized websites for the eCommerce business solutions.

Here are the reasons listed below:

Unacceptable Web Performance :: Responsive Web Design

Responsive web design is a new technology that is constantly observing regular developments and improvements. Every day, a new plug-in is created to handle the website bugs. Furthermore, when positioning the large files and images on the web pages is concerned, designers are committing a lot of mistakes that go on to deliver a bad user experience and in turn affects the branding of the companies in the eCommerce world. According to Forrester Consulting, 64% of the shoppers would prefer visiting the next e-store if they encounter a slow response. The data reveals how the customers react when they observe something unacceptable.

Slow Loading Time :: Responsive Web Design

The coding used in responsive design is similar for all the screens. Whether it is the desktop, mobile or tablet, the same codes are used in all different types of screens. This creates loading issue with the devices that have smaller screen and slower internet connection, especially with the mobile gadgets. This is certainly disturbing for the eCommerce world. According to the research conducted by Gomex and Akamai, 40% of the online shoppers will leave the web page or website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load (Source: KISSmetrics).

Longer Checkout Process :: Responsive Web Design

Harris Interactive conducted a study on mobile consumers and stated that 47% of the users failed to complete a purchase due to the long checkout process (Source: Jumio). The issue is created because of the slow loading process, which is obvious with the mobile devices. This issue leads to the higher shopping cart abandonment rates.

Bad for Sales :: Responsive Web Design

A bad user experience is proportional to the lower conversion rates. That means, providing a better user experience will help in reducing the cart abandonment rates. Econsultancy has concluded in their study that 62% of the websites, which are optimized according to the mobile, have reported better sales compared to a responsive website design.

A Bit Costlier :: Responsive Web Design

The whole site has to be redesigned in responsive website design. It requires a team of expert web designers, which is always a pricey deal. Moreover, the website designing takes some extra time in development compared to the mobile website design.

It seems that a responsive web design has several flaws compared to mobile web design. However, it is the new technology and expected to deliver ‘wow’ results in the near future. It is the sole discretion of the business-entities to choose in between responsive or mobile web design.

This article is written by Deepak Gupta. He is a Senior UI / UX Designer at India-designers.net. India Designers is a reputed web design agency specializing in responsive web design, Creative UI / UX Design and more.

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