Are you focusing on mobile site quality and conversion? If not, you need to. Here’s an example of a client whose conversion rate we lifted, plus tips to help you do the same.
Mobile may be the most important aspect of your WooCommerce site today.
The stats bear this out. In Australia, mobile devices account for the majority of the time people spend online, and most of the traffic that ecommerce sites get now comes from mobile.
This article is part of our WooCommerce Performance Optimization series. For the complete guide covering why stores are slow and how to resolve it, start there.
You’re missing out if you’re not focusing on mobile WooCommerce development. A poor mobile UX puts potential customers off and leads to lost business.
Despite this, we see many business owners who don’t focus on mobile conversion. Instead, they focus solely on desktop, perhaps under the assumption that their market doesn’t use mobile.
The stats above show that isn’t the case. In our capacity as a WooCommerce developer, we’ve helped several clients boost their mobile conversions.
Trucker’s Toy Store was one of them. Let’s look at how we helped them, then examine some tips to help you do the same.
A note before we start: this case study gets into PageSpeed scores, UX failures, and the WooCommerce build underneath them. If that’s your world, the detail is all here. If it isn’t, the short version is simple – we reworked the mobile experience on Trucker’s Toy Store’s existing site, and in a single month mobile conversion rose 116.25% and revenue rose 242%. Skip to the FAQ for what that means for your store.
Trucker’s Toy Store – Mobile Conversion Up 116.25% in One Month
Based in Australia, Trucker’s Toy Store is a major manufacturer of truck accessories. They specialise in working with gold and chrome plating, and stainless steel. For over 15 years, they’ve provided parts for some of the biggest truck brands in the world.
A quick visit to their desktop website shows that they’ve created a perfect playground for truckers. Customers can find almost anything they need for both the interior and exterior of their trucks with the company.
They have a deep passion for trucking.
But they came to us with a challenge relating to their mobile website…
What Was Broken
Our diagnostic process looks at four layers – UX, performance, analytics, and the underlying WooCommerce build – developed across 11 years and hundreds of WooCommerce engagements. Here is what those layers surfaced for Trucker’s Toy Store.
Analytics. At the time, 72% of Trucker’s Toy Store’s traffic came from mobile devices. That’s a high proportion for an online store, and it meant the mobile experience was where most of the revenue opportunity sat – and where most of it was being lost.
UX. A visit to their site on a mobile device revealed they hadn’t optimised towards that traffic. The header and logo took up a lot of real estate on every page we visited. That meant a lot of scrolling before a customer could reach any useful content. We read the UX against the priorities surfaced by our own pattern recognition across hundreds of WooCommerce stores, alongside the Baymard Institute’s ecommerce research; against that standard, the mobile experience rated poorly.
Performance and WooCommerce build. The mobile experience was slow and structurally fragile in exactly the places where a purchase decision is made. The result was a frustrating browse on mobile, and conversion rates that weren’t where the company needed them to be.
They needed help that only an experienced WooCommerce developer skilled in mobile UX could provide.
What We Did
We don’t do rebuilds. In 11 years, we’ve never told a client to start over. Trucker’s Toy Store’s site after we shipped was the same site they came to us with – same URL, same content, same orders, same customer data. What changed was the mobile theme, the failing UX across the purchase journey, and the performance configuration underneath. Same store, working properly.
We restructured the mobile experience layer by layer. Mobile came first, tablets second, and desktop third. Our goal was to make the mobile UX as friendly as possible, so the company could take advantage of its high volume of mobile traffic.
We addressed the priority usability issues first: the header and logo that pushed content below the fold, the friction in product discovery, and the path to add-to-cart. Then we tuned the performance configuration so the first piece of content appeared faster on mobile.
And the results came fast.
Their mobile conversion rate increased by 116.25% within the first 30 days of going live with the reworked mobile experience.
That translated to a large increase in transactions on the site. Across that first month, Trucker’s Toy Store’s revenue rose by 242.01%.
In the period that followed, we continued to refine the site, and the company’s numbers held a sustained increase from the work.
Accessibility
A mobile experience that converts has to be usable by everyone. As we reworked the mobile UX, we held the changes to recognised accessibility standards (WCAG 2.1 AA): readable tap targets and spacing for touch, sufficient colour contrast on product and checkout pages, a logical heading and focus order for screen readers and keyboard navigation, and descriptive alternative text on imagery. Accessible mobile UX and conversion are the same work – removing friction for one group removes it for all of them.
The Tips
Trucker’s Toy Store’s result shows how much a strong mobile ecommerce UX is worth. Reworking the mobile experience led to large gains in conversions, transactions, and revenue.
Now, you need to know how to do the same.
We’ve compiled a short list of tips to get you started.
Tip #1 – Use Research to Guide your UX
It could take an eternity to research all of the information you need to know about the mobile UX.
The patterns Blaze Commerce has built across hundreds of WooCommerce engagements let you shortcut that process. Instead of spending hours searching the web, you draw on diagnostic experience in one place.
Blaze Commerce also offers a full website analysis service. This is a useful tool for any WooCommerce store, as it pinpoints the major challenges quickly.
It’s the first port of call for anyone who’s getting a lot of traffic but few conversions. With our diagnostic process, you can identify the big challenges you need to confront.
Want to know the most common user experience violations we find when reviewing and auditing online stores? See The Top 18 Usability Issues that Cost Online Stores Sales.
Tip #2 – Boost Your Mobile Site Speed
Did you know that 40% of people will abandon your website if it takes over three seconds to load?
That’s a large share of potential customers you’re missing out on. The aim is a half-second mobile load, so visitors see your content before they lose patience.
A focus on speed pays when it comes to mobile conversion rates.
There are several things you can do to figure out where your site stands and how to improve it:
- Run your URL through a current mobile speed and Core Web Vitals check to see where your site stands today.
- Use a mobile-optimised, block-native theme that focuses specifically on mobile UX.
- Optimise your images. The larger your image file sizes, the longer they take to load.
The main goal is to improve your render start time (RST) by as much as possible. This is the amount of time it takes for your first piece of content to appear on the screen.
A good WooCommerce Developer, such as ourselves, can help in that department.
Tip #3 – Make it Easy to Buy
Let’s focus on the mobile ecommerce UX experience for a moment.
A visitor lands on one of your product pages and decides to buy the item. That’s a great start. They love the content and they’re about to click the Add to Cart button…
Except they can’t find it. Usually, that’s because it’s buried right at the bottom of the page, or somewhere near the top. The customer has to scroll to find it, which adds time to their action. That time leads to frustration and could result in them changing their mind.
The point is that you have to make it as easy as possible to buy from your mobile site.
There are several ways to do this. Our favourite is a sticky Add to Cart button. This means the button stays on the screen no matter where the visitor scrolls. Once they decide, it’s right there for them to click.
Tip #4 – Nail the Site Design
This is where Trucker’s Toy Store struggled most. Their website didn’t display well on mobile devices at all. As a result, many visitors took one look and decided to go elsewhere.
Mobile users demand the same level of professionalism from your mobile website as they do from your desktop one.
If your first impression doesn’t match their expectations, you need to address your mobile UX.
Here’s an interesting statistic. According to Google, people take less than one second to determine whether they like a website’s appearance.
That means your design has to showcase what you offer, and the needs you fulfil, from the onset. That’s not what Trucker’s Toy Store’s mobile site did. Visitors landed on the home page and saw a huge logo they had to scroll past.
That’s not going to inspire anybody into a purchase.
Reworking a mobile experience may seem like a big commitment. You will have to invest in the work, especially when using a good WooCommerce developer.
But it pays off. Trucker’s Toy Store’s revenue increase in their first month showed that.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much did Trucker’s Toy Store’s mobile conversion rate improve?
Their mobile conversion rate increased by 116.25% within the first 30 days of going live with the reworked mobile experience. Across that same first month, revenue rose by 242.01%. The conversion lift is the cause; the revenue figure is the downstream result of more of the existing mobile traffic converting.
Did you rebuild the Trucker’s Toy Store website from scratch?
No. We don’t do rebuilds. The site after we shipped was the same site they came to us with – same URL, same content, same orders, same customer data. What changed was the mobile theme, the failing UX across the purchase journey, and the performance configuration underneath.
How do you diagnose a WooCommerce store’s mobile experience?
Across four layers, built up over 11 years and hundreds of WooCommerce engagements: UX (informed by our own pattern recognition across hundreds of stores alongside Baymard Institute research), performance (load, render, and infrastructure), analytics (how customers behave on the site, including the share of traffic on mobile), and the underlying WooCommerce build (theme, plugins, and architecture). For Trucker’s Toy Store, analytics showed 72% of traffic came from mobile, which is where we concentrated the work.
Why does mobile matter so much for a WooCommerce store?
Most ecommerce traffic now arrives on mobile, and for many stores the majority of visits never touch a desktop. When the mobile experience is slow or hard to use, you lose the bulk of your potential customers before they ever reach the cart. Trucker’s Toy Store had 72% of traffic on mobile, so the mobile experience was effectively the whole store.
What’s the fastest way to improve mobile conversion?
Start with the diagnostic, not a teardown. Identify the specific friction points on your existing mobile experience – content pushed below the fold, slow render start, a hard-to-find Add to Cart – and resolve them in order of revenue impact. Improving page load toward a half-second, keeping Add to Cart in reach, and removing layout clutter consistently move the conversion rate without starting over.
Boost Your Mobile Conversion Rate Today
We’ve covered a few useful tips here. It bears repeating that Blaze Commerce brings diagnostic experience from hundreds of WooCommerce engagements to the table. You’ll learn more about the importance of the user experience and how it affects mobile conversion rates.
Making it easy to buy is a small tweak that can make a big difference. So too can optimising your existing website so it loads faster.
But you may need to rework your mobile experience to make the most of your mobile traffic. That’s where we come in.
Call us on 1300 155 435 or contact us via our website to talk to a specialist who can help you boost your mobile site conversions.