Case-Mate is rolling out the mobile site after seeing approximately 20 percent of traffic coming from smartphones and tablets. Case-Mate is working with commerce solution ShopVisible on the initiative.

“Our goal was to make the site mobile-friendly and enhance the shopping experience,” said Adam Roe, vice president of ecommerce and custom cases at Case-Mate, Tucker, GA.

“We saw that traffic was coming from mobile device and we knew that the user experience was not optimal, so we created something that was meant for those users,” he said.

Mobile shopping
Based on Case-Mate’s products, which include covers for mobile phones and tablets, a commerce-enabled mobile site was a natural starting place for the brand to dip its toes into mobile.

Consumers can access the mobile site by typing http://www.case-mate.com/ into their mobile browsers. The site has been live since the beginning of April.

The top of the mobile site is merchandised to feature the newest products.

Users can then browse each category by device type to find cases.

To help users narrow down their options, consumers can filter results by best-selling product, price and rating.

The mobile site is powered by PayPal and users can check-out either by creating an account or logging in as a guest.

The mobile site also features a search bar at the top of the page to help consumers if they are looking for something specific.

Icons for Case-Mate’s social media platforms, which include Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube are also heavily promoted at the bottom of the page, which helps the company build its social media strategy.

Additionally, consumers can also order with a click-to-call feature that is promoted at the bottom of the page.

Device shopping
Given what Case-Mate sells, having a strong mobile commerce strategy seems like a given.

Mobile cases are products that consumers most likely think about while they are holding their devices in their hands.

Case-Mate chose to use a mobile site as a foundation for its mobile strategy and is also looking at developing an application in the future.

Although an app might be beneficial for the company, consumers generally only buy a case for their mobile devices only once in a while. Since apps tend to be driven for more long-term, loyalty-based users, it might not make sense for the company to develop an app that is only used a few times by a consumer.

In addition, the push towards social media is a smart feature to include for Case-Mate because it gives consumers a peek at what users are saying about the brand, which can be helpful for shoppers looking for quick information while on the go.

“The No. 1 driver for the mobile site was speed, and it needed to get through purchase power as soon as possible,” said Josh Lloyd, cofounder/chief technology officer at ShopVisible, Atlanta.

“I think the biggest reason to go to a site versus an app is if you are a smaller and niche brand, you want to rely on SEO,” he said.

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is editorial assistant on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York