I don't do a lot of online shopping because in order to save money, I like to experience the physical pain of giving cold hard cash instead of the ease of card usage. I do use other methods such as gcash and dragonpay, but that sometimes involves lining up...
However, supplied with my phone, I do a lot of online window shopping. But I sometimes get a little frustrated with certain retailers. Why?
Because it seems that they are neglecting mobile browsing in favor of apps. Apps which I have no desire to commit to because it will clog my phone up and possibly increase my spending. Granted, this is what they want anyway. However, they are losing business by doing this simply by access. There are less people downloading apps than those browsing app free. Apps help drum up repeat business, but aside from stubborn people like me who refuse to download, the initial traffic usually comes from a website.
Now, some big sites are ok. I can easily browse shopee, zalora and althea and I usually do visit regularly. BeautyMNL, which recently launched an app version- partially inspiring this piece, is readable (though their search functions and categorizations are shit and require an obscene amount of scrolling unless you know what exactly you are looking for).
However, some sites are just impossible unless I switch browsers. I'm talking to you lazada and sephora! While this isn't a big hindrance to me, like downloading an actual app is, it is a small inconvenience. And it could be a significant hindrance for those who use a browser incompatible with those sites.
Anway, mobile apps are all well and good. But websites are still important enough that they should check if their sites load properly across different browsers and devices.
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