NEW YORK – A Sportsman’s Guide executive at the Netbiscuits World 2012 conference said that the company is seeing eight percent of online revenue coming from mobile, the majority of which comes from iOS devices.

During the “The Path to mCommerce Success via an Integrated Platform Solution” session, the Sportsman’s Guide executive discussed how the mobile Web is impacting the company’s business both with smartphones and tablets. Additionally, the exec revealed some upcoming plans for the holiday shopping season.

“We’re not real big on apps – we think this [mobile Web] is the way to go,” said Todd Wermerson, chief information officer and senior vice president of information technology at The Sportsman’s Guide, St. Paul, MN.

“We want the mobile site to mimic native as much as possible but also take advantage of the good things about mobile,” he said.

“Customers – whether you have stores – they expect the same experience, they expect to be treated the same, and I think that is what we’re trying to do here.”

Tab into mobile
According to Mr. Wermerson, 86 percent of the company’s traffic comes from iOS devices.

The company is focusing its mobile Web efforts on both smartphone and a tablet-specific site.

Sportsman’s Guide has been ramping up its tablet efforts in the past four months with the iPad primarily in mind. The company plans to roll out a tablet-specific site in November in time for holiday shopping.

When the site launches, the company plans to drive 50 percent of tablet traffic to the new site and take the other 50 percent to the company’s Web site to test how consumers react to the new tablet site.

Additionally, Mr. Wermerson said that there is a strong conversion rate for tablets.

In the next year, Mr. Wermerson projects that there will be a 12 percent increase in mobile revenue for the company.

Mobile foundation
Redcats USA owns Sportsman’s Guide. Redcats USA initially launched into mobile in 2010 for its brands. However, the user experience was not good.

The company decided to regroup and launched a new mobile Web experience in the summer of 2011.

Goals for the new site included a cost-effective option and incorporating new features – such as tabs.

One week after going live, mobile sales increased by four times, showing how an optimized site can drive revenue for brands. Three months after rolling out its site, mobile sales increased by 16 times.

Additionally, sales per visit increased. Mobile traffic has also increased by three times.

Mobile revenue increased is up five times year-over-year for Sportsman’s Guide.

“The vision for us was seamless integration with our Web site – if we wanted to do a promotion at noon on Thursday, we wanted that promotion to be available on the mobile site,” Mr. Wermerson said.

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is associate reporter on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York