Vast Opportunity Exists with Mobile Web Sites

New research indicates that a surprisingly large number of small businesses do not have plans to optimize their website for mobile in the near future. While it may not be expected, this certainly indicates an area of opportunity for savvy small businesses that are embracing the trends and building mobile web sites for their business.

TransFirst and ControlScan’s new report titled “Small Merchants and Mobile Payments: 2013 Survey on Technology Awareness and Adoption”, indicates that almost half (49 percent) of ecommerce merchants are aware that their websites are not optimized for mobile environments and that 17 percent didn’t know whether or not their websites are optimized for mobile or not.

This is where the opportunity comes in. While consumers have embraced mobile and the use of the mobile web, we see that just 31 percent of multi-channel businesses have a mobile web site for their business. Unexpectedly, only 37 percent of small businesses are either in the process of creating mobile web sites (15 percent) or plan to create a mobile web site in the next year (22 percent). The rest have no plans to take advantage of this rapidly growing market. 21 percent are ‘somewhat interested’ in mobile optimization and plan to maybe do something within the next couple years, 29 percent have no plans to optimize in the foreseeable future and the final 13 percent are unsure.

“Business owners who aren’t planning on creating a mobile optimized web site need to get there” said Kimber Johnson, managing director at Vanity Point. “Small businesses need to embrace these trends and guide their business towards growth and increased revenue.”

Clearly mobile optimized web sites offer huge opportunities since consumers have been so quick to embrace their use and small businesses have struggled to adopt them. Businesses willing to give the customers what they want will reap the rewards.