The company launched its mobile site 18 months ago and has seen an increase in visitors. Additionally Dell found that consumers are visiting its site by typing http://www.dell.com in their mobile browser.

“Customers are willing to purchase products via their small screen devices,” said Eve Richey, head of mobility, Dell Inc. “We have people visiting our site and they’re willing to purchase the core products we want them to purchase.

Top sellers
According to Ms. Richey, Dell’s top sellers include the Inspiron 15 laptop, laptop bags, AC adapters, Mini 10 laptop and Studio 15 laptop.

“Laptops are three of the five top sellers,” Ms. Richey said.

The company also found that consumers are receptive to mobile marketing, including text alerts.

Dells features a deal club, which is has found to be an effective campaign, per Ms. Richey.

The text open rates exceed email campaigns and the opt-outs are low.

Users who access the mobile site can shop for home or business, as well as search for specific products.

Consumers can browse deals, electronics and accessories, mobile, laptops, netbooks and desktops.

While on the site, customers can join Dell mobile deal clubs to get free stuff and deals.

Mobile challenges
Although more consumers are accessing Dell’s mobile site, the company still finds that there are several key challenges.

The challenges include what technology the company should leverage to serve its mobile customers, whether or not to use third party or in-house browser and application services, whether to have browsers, apps or both and if Dell should replicate its entire ecommerce site, some or new functionality.

“The answer to all of these is yes,” Ms. Richey said. “The future should including leveraging mobile on multiple fronts.

“We see the mobile browser as being a long-term, global solution,” she said. “Apps are faster speed to market, but have niche usage models across the business enterprise.

“Cross channel mobile usage models have great upside drive by customer point of need.”

Recently, another Dell executive said that mobile has to be an integral part of marketers’ advertising and marketing efforts and that consumers will connect to the Internet via mobile more than desktop PCs in the next five years (see story).

Mobile payments is also something that Dell is looking into.

“So far we have the same payments [as we do on our ecommerce site],” Ms. Richey said. “We’ll see in the future.
“It’s something that we have to address to make easier for consumers,” she said.

Final Take