Who does it best? 5 Leading Canadian Retailer Mobile User Experiences

Who does it best? 5 Leading Canadian Retailer Mobile User Experiences

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In this blog we review the mobile experiences provided by 5 leading Canadian retail brands.  According to the survey conducted by Leger For SAS  the mobile marketing is key to increase sales and improve customer loyalty. Here are some findings from the survey:

• Most Canadian consumers want a tailored shopping experience on their mobile devices.
• 82% –  Find it helpful to get product or service information on their mobile devices while browsing in a store.
• 67% – Have purchased an item via their mobile phone using the web browser on a mobile app.
• 58% – Would be interested in getting promotions when they out shopping.
• 71% – Would make some sort of purchase if presented with a promotion on their smartphones for complimentary product.

We want to understand how leading Canadian retailers integrate mobile channels in the overall customer experience. While number of leading US brands are also among the top online retails for Canadian consumers we only focus our evaluation on  Canadian brands.  We reviewed and analyzed mobile shoppers experience with the following 5 brands:

1. Canada Goose
2. Indigo
3. Lululemon
4. Shop.ca
5. Well.ca

Canada Goose

Canada Goose has been manufacturing innovative, high quality outerwear in Canada for over 50 years. From South Pole research facilities and the Canadian High Arctic to the streets of New York City, Stockholm, Milan, Toronto and Tokyo, people wear our products because of our reputation for quality, functionality and style.

Canada Goose offers a mobile web site with the catalog of their products. You cannot purchase online. The catalog is nicely presented on small 4-inch screen with mobile touch screen optimized navigation. It shows the nearest retailers  if you agree to use your current location by the web site. You can make a call with one click to the selected retailer.  The Get Directions links in the retailer list do not work. You have manually copy the address and use your iPhone or Google map application to find the directions.

The Online Retailers button displays link to 14 Canadian and 28 US online retailers offering Canada Goose products.

Among 14 Canadian online retailers that sell Canada Goose online only one retailer – Henry Singer have a mobile web site. The Henry Singer mobile web store provides friendly mobile experience and also one screen checkout. The checkout screen is long page but it loads fast and allows you to see all information on one screen including your products in the shopping basket, address and payment.

Overall mobile user experience score:  3/5

 

Indigo

The first Indigo location opened in Burlington Ontario in 1997. Since that Indigo has evolved to become Canada’s largest book and specialty retailer with locations in all 10 provinces and one territory and also offers an award-winning online experience at indigo.ca.

Indigo offers mobile user two options to use the mobile web site or to install a mobile app from the application store. The mobile web site employs familiar mobile navigation pattern. Due to very large size of the product catalog the search feature is the prime option to find a product.  The site search functionality works fast on the mobile device.

The checkout screen offers three common options:

• Sign in with existing account
• Create account
• Guest checkout

The guest checkout flow includes steps:

• Email address
• Delivery options
• Address or store selection
• Payment
• Review and place order

The Indigo iPhone app has similar very options with the mobile web site.  When you get the search result list and want to get to home page you have to click the cancel link, which is somehow confusing. It would be better to have home icon.

The checkout process is similar to the mobile web application.



There are few native mobile features to help users:

• You may scan Barcode on the back of the book and order online
• You may add your existing plum rewards card to the application
• Social connections
• Push notifications

Indigo/ Chapters has a long history of ecommerce since the late nineties.  Indigo mobile options cover both segments: the casual shoppers and the  loyal frequent  customers who may use the  native iPhone app with additional features.

Overall mobile user experience score:  4/5

 

Lululemon

Founded in Vancouver BC in 1998, the first Lululemon shared its retail space with a yoga studio. The brand been growing ever since, and its technical yoga and run clothes are now available in countries all over the world.

Lululemon.com has a mobile store web site. The home uses combination of vertical scrolling with horizontal sliders that is not the most optimal for mobile screen. The top navigation bar includes the shopping basket icon with item count and also indicates free shipping option that is important feature for the most online shoppers.

The catalog browsing menu system follows the familiar mobile applications pattern and easy to navigate.  The gift guide is useful for online as well as offline shopping.

The checkout process is  a straightforward 3 step flow,  that informs on the first screen about that and indicates your progress with each step.

If you decide to find a nearest store and buy item the site also provides you with necessary information. The find store feature detects your phone location and shows the Google map with nearest stores. You may see store details including, phone, address, hours of operations and even a store photo.

Overall the lululemon.com mobile web user experience is above average and even somehow better then with the desktop site. It has more consistent navigation and product presentation.

Overall mobile user experience score:  4/5

 

Shop.ca

Launched in July 2012, SHOP.CA has become the fastest growing retail site in Canada and top 10 most visited Canadian owned ecommerce site.



Shop .ca offers a desktop web site for desktop/laptop as well as tablet users or the mobile version of web site for mobile users.

The mobile site includes most of the functionality of the desktop site. The top level left slide-in menu   is limited to Departments, Store and Brands navigation while desktop has also Shop Gift Guides, Women,  Men, Baby, On Sale special menu categories.

The mobile site is relatively slow and some pages like browse by Brands take over 10 or even 15 seconds to load. The product listing formatting is very inconsistent by department.



The checkout page offers social sign-on option with Facebook account, Login  for existing accounts, sign up of checkout as a guest. The Check out as guest option is under the fold and user has to scroll down to see it.  It would be much better to make all options visible on the screen without scrolling.

Overall mobile user experience score:  2/5

 

Well.ca

Well.ca is Canada’s online store for health, beauty and baby essentials. It carries more than 50,000 products from over 3000 brands, with free shipping almost everywhere in Canada.



The well.ca site is not mobile but it offers to download a free mobile application for mobile and tablet users.





iPhone and iPad mobile applications have 3.5 /5 user rating in the Apple application store. Both versions of mobile applications user interface are easy to use and fast.  From    home screen you can reach what on sale, feature products or see what is new items with one touch. The store menu navigation is  a good balance of  the text menu and image tile navigations.  The checkout/registration screens are clear designed.

Overall Well.ca  provides decent user and shopping experience after your download the application to your device.

Overall mobile user experience score:  3.5/5

 

Summary and Conclusions

Below is the summary of the 5 leading Canadian online retail brands review:

Brand	The main site is Responsive Web Design Site	Mobile web site	Mobile shopping card with checkout	Mobile app	Overall mobile experience score
Canada Goose	No	Yes	No	No	2.5/5
Chapters.indigo.ca	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	4/5
Lululemon.cm	No	Yes	Yes	No	4/5
Shop.ca	No	Yes	Yes	No	2/5
Well.ca	No	No	Yes	Yes	3.5/5

The mobile online presence is a critical element of the cross channel customer experience.  The task of creating an easy to use mobile e-commerce interface is much more challenging than for the mostly informational web sites. There are number of e-commerce features like product configuration or product comparison that need completely different design approach to make them friendly on a small touch screen.  The mobile commerce applications may also enhance user experience with GPS, bar code scanners, wallets or passbook, and integrated identity sensors.  In case of ecommerce the gap between phone and desktop user experiences is much more than a difference in screen size. This is likely the reason that all 5 brands that we reviewed do not use the Responsive Web Design approach but rather the mobile web applications or native mobile apps that  are designed  for the smartphone users.

Retailers are still in the beginning of learning journey for the best ways of integrating the mobile user experience in the cross-channel customer experience.  We expect that in 2014 more retailers will learn how to master mobile and cross channel experience to improve customer experience and loyalty.