Mobile has certainly picked up a full head of steam in recent years, which is a point that hasn’t been lost on officials at eBags, an industry-leading e-tailer and travel gear expert. Mobile customer engagement has become a top priority at eBags, reflected by the company’s staggering year-over-year sales growth via mobile of 70 percent.
Mobile traffic grew 67 percent during the company’s fiscal fourth quarter and 53 percent for the year. eBags aligned several initiatives around a mobile-first company strategy which drove the positive results.
How has eBags leveraged the popularity of mobile, specifically, during the past year when the company experienced this tremendous growth?
“Because we know our customers are mobile first, we have shifted our strategy to focus on mobile-first shopping experiences,” eBags CTO Mike Frazzini explained to Loyalty360.
Frazzini said some of the mobile-first initiatives eBags implemented include the following:
Reduced mobile checkout pages from 7 to 1
Added mobile wallets (Apple Pay, ChasePay, MasterPass, Amex)
Increased mobile site load speed (a major hurdle for mobile conversion)
Incorporated adaptive design for site optimization
Fine-tuned emails to be easier for mobile users
“We have also invested heavily in developing services like our eBags Connected Tag and Steal of the Day programs that drive customer engagement and loyalty through our mobile app,” Frazzini added.
With more than 17 years in the travel goods industry and 28 million bags sold, eBags is the leading online retailer of luggage, backpacks, and travel-related accessories.
Chris Seahorn, vice president of marketing at eBags, talked to Loyalty360 about the company’s tactics when it comes to mobile-first marketing to its customers.
“The marketing strategy shift to mobile requires better measurement and understanding of how our users and their path to purchase,” Seahorn explained. “Many users discover eBags on a mobile device and, ultimately, feel more comfortable completing the purchase on a desktop. They may hit a number of different channels and devices along the way, and developing better means to understand this journey is critical to making the right marketing investment decisions.”
Removing friction in mobile with relentless user testing, split-testing of features and feature enhancements, mobile friendly payments, and continuous mobile site speed improvements also played a major role in the company’s 70 percent year-over-year growth in mobile sales, Seahorn noted.
“We have a dedicated product and development team for mobile, which is also key,” Seahorn said.
Ebags officials have noticed customer behavioral changes in recent years related to mobile engagement.
“The main behavioral shifts we saw from customers migrating to mobile was the use of voice to search and the consumption of video content,” Seahorn said. “The voice queries are much more specific than typing in head terms into google and we reorganized resources to begin building out content to meet these needs. The consumption of content on Facebook is predominantly mobile, requiring eBags to adopt many of Facebook’s best practices for the mobile feed, including designing video for sound, optimizing the vertical format, and even tapping into Facebook Live.”