Inside Frederick's Of Hollywood's Mobile Website Initiative

By Erin Harris, Integrated Solutions For Retailers magazine

The mobile phone is evolving into a powerful commerce tool, enabling consumers to review products, run price comparisons, access inventory levels, and make transactions over the mobile network as well as at the POS. Consumers are increasingly using their mobile phones for transactions, and there is no question that the opportunity is growing by the day. Because Web traffic from mobile devices has been negligible until now, what is the best way to ensure a successful mobile website strategy? Once it accounts for more than 10% of traffic, as it is has for some retailers, merchants start to view it as a missed sales opportunity if increased traffic doesn't result in an increased conversion rate. Frederick's of Hollywood, a well-known lingerie retailer, saw its mobile traffic increase significantly. Yet, the retailer's mobile shopping experience and functionality were not optimal for its mobile visitors. Frederick's needed to provide its customers with a true mobile website rather than rendering its traditional e-commerce website on a mobile phone. With limited time and resources, Frederick's turned to an out-of-the-box solution to meet its customers' expectations for a mobile website.