Comfort footwear retailer Rockport is leaving behind a significant digital footprint, as evidenced by a massive jump in mobile commerce revenue and a 124 percent year-over-year increase in holiday weekend sales.

Rockport experienced a 434 percent increase in total mobile commerce revenue from 2014 to 2015, signaling that its revamped mobile site has been resonating positively with shoppers. The brand collaborated with ecommerce provider Unbound Commerce to add frictionless experiences to its smartphone-specific offerings, a move that resulted in higher conversion rates and staggering sales.

“Its mobile site is a distinct element of the omnichannel experience – versus just a shrunken or resized version of its ecommerce site,” said Wilson Kerr, vice president of business development and sales at Unbound Commerce, Boston.

“While the data and orders flow seamlessly between its Demandware ecommerce site via an API integration, the mobile site experience is unique, purpose-built for mobile, ‘untethered’ from the ecommerce experience, and optimized for just mobile traffic.”

Untying holiday sales
Rockport experienced a fruitful holiday season in 2015, with the retailer seeing a mobile commerce revenue spike of 124.8 percent from the previous year occur over the four-day period including Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

It placed mobile at the forefront of its online growth plan this year, a strategy that culminated in sales exceeding expectations and more purchases made on personal devices.

Mobile page views also skyrocketed over the Christmas shopping season, increasing by 60.61 percent and signaling that marketers without shopping applications must offer optimized mobile sites with streamlined checkout options.

Rockport’s mobile site saw the number of unique visitors rise by 40.11 percent, with the average amount of page views per user clocking in at 8.54, an increase of nearly 16 percent from previous years.

Revenue growth eclipsed the amount of new unique users, proving that loyal customers are returning to Rockport to make additional purchases. Rockport’s total mobile commerce revenue for 2015 jumped by 434 percent over 2014, likely due to the brand’s decision to update its mobile site with a slew of transaction-friendly features.

Revamping mdot sites
Rockport joined forces with Unbound Commerce approximately one year ago to facilitate the redesign of its mobile site. The site was revamped entirely with the inclusion of new tools such as a smartphone-specific “buy now” button that helps reduce the amount of steps required during checkout processes.

Rockport also taps landing pages and other features within Unbound Commerce’s platform to drive social media traffic to optimized pages. This adds a seamless layer to sales conversions while also reducing friction.

Rockport is not the only footwear retailer seeing a massive surge in digital sales.

Shoes.com is also tightening up its mobile strategy after seeing 31.8 percent of purchases stem from smartphones this year, up by nearly 21 percent since 2014 (see story).

Another best practice for retailers to leverage is the inclusion of touch commerce options, a trend that will undoubtedly catch even more fire this year.

As consumers become more comfortable with making purchases on smartphones, the number of users tapping a third-party touch-based payment platform for mobile checkout is expected to increase by 150 percent this year, according to research from Deloitte Canada (see story).

Combating mobile shopping cart abandonment requires the integration of features such as “buy now” buttons and third-party payment options, both of which Rockport currently employs for its mobile site. Shoppers can elect to pay via Google Wallet if they already have accounts with the mobile commerce platform.

“Features like this allow mobile shoppers to quickly and easily add items to the cart,” Mr. Kerr said. “Rockport worked with Unbound to identify and eliminate friction and integrated this feature specifically for mobile.

“Rockport’s ability to add mobile-specific features designed to increase mobile conversions is a great benefit to the dedicated mobile approach it has taken.”