Thanksgiving weekend shows eCommerce software with mobile Web design is crucial

Mobile eCommerce (or mCommerce) shopping stats for Thanksgiving weekend, 2012, show that eCommerce software with mobile Web design is now mandatory for all eCommerce businesses.

You might be interested to learn that over Black Friday, Walmart reported that 45% of all traffic to Walmart.com came from mobile devices.

And, fully 10% of all online shopping was conducted from an iPad tablet device - with nearly a quarter of all visits to retail sites coming from smartphones or tablets.

Now that mobile eCommerce is almost as important as traditional eCommerce, the question is no longer when your eCommerce site should support mobile browsing (using responsive Web design), but how quickly and cheaply you can implement the upgrade to mobile support.

Fortunately, upgrading an eCommerce site, or building a new eCommerce site that has great responsive Web design is not as hard as you might think. This article will show how online store owners and entrepreneurs can implement responsive Web design using leading shopping cart software, or by upgrading an existing online store.

eCommerce software with mobile Web design

The quickest and easiest way to have a mobile eCommerce site is to use an online store builder that comes with responsive Web design features built-in.

Having an eCommerce software solution that can provide out-of-the-box responsive Web design is first prize, because there are no additional development costs, or tricky Web design issues that can take time, effort and money to solve.

If you are starting an eCommerce store, or willing to migrate your existing store to a new platform, then the following eCommerce website builders (taken from the article The 3 best shopping carts for mobile eCommerce (m-commerce)) have the best mobile support:

1. Shopify
2. BigCommerce
3. Volusion

Upgrading existing eCommerce stores with mobile Web design

If you already have an existing online store that does not have built-in mobile support, like the previously mentioned eCommerce software solutions, there are still a few options available for you to quickly and cheaply upgrade.

Taken from the article entitled 3 ways to upgrade to a mobile website with responsive Web design, you can:

1. Use an online mobile conversion tool & service like dudamobile
2. Get a responsive Web design template that is compatible with your Web platform from Template Monster

If neither of these options is possible then it is likely you will need to migrate your eCommerce store to a new Web platform. While this is harder to do than the previous options, it may not be as difficult as you think.

Many good Web platforms provide migration pathways from various platforms into their own. The migration of content from one Web platform to another is not necessarily straight forward, but at least there will be a step by step guide to help you.

I recommend visiting your intended Web platforms' homepage and searching in their support forums for assistance.

For custom designed eCommerce sites

If your website is designed from scratch, then I strongly urge you to consider migrating to one of the top quality eCommerce software solutions.

The reason? Your custom website will not be updated and upgraded with new technologies like other, popular eCommerce platforms - unless you consistently and persistently spend money to do so. With time your website will fall further and further behind on SEO, technology and performance, and your business competitiveness will become sorely limited.

It is not your job as an online store owner and operator to be a Web development expert. Time spent developing your eCommerce website is time NOT spent growing your business, marketing products, and generating sales.

Check out the following list of the most popular eCommerce solutions in the world today. Make sure that the one you choose has the best range of features to support your business, as well as great mobile support for your customers.

With consumer confidence up towards the end of 2012, and mobile commerce breaking record after record, hopefully your online store will be in a position to generate growing sales from customers using mobile devices.

Share your thoughts on how the rise of the mobile device will affect eCommerce in the coming years, in the comments below.