Mobile first and channel ubiquity, time to rethink how you sell online

Most people are not sat at a desk when they buy. They are in a queue for coffee. On a train. On the sofa with the TV on. They see something on TikTok. They Google a review. They message a mate. Then they press buy now on their phone. That is how it works in 2025. Mobile first and everywhere at once.

What mobile first really means now

It is not just a site that looks fine on a phone. That is table stakes. Mobile first means the whole journey is built for real life. Short attention. Lots of interruptions. Zero patience. Ready to buy if you make it easy.

Speed matters. If a page takes more than about three seconds half your visitors will give up. Each extra second can knock conversion by roughly seven percent. If your checkout takes longer than making a coffee you lose the sale.

Be everywhere without feeling broken

People do not think in channels. They move from Instagram to your site to your app without caring what sits behind it. If wishlist items do not follow them or the basket resets it feels broken and trust drops.

This is why connecting your stack matters. Website. App. CRM. Inventory. Payments. Marketing tools. All talking to each other so a customer can pick up where they left off anywhere. Call it composable. Call it joined up. The name does not matter. The feeling of continuity does.

Make buying simple

A lot of checkouts fail because they try too hard. Too many steps. Too many fields. Forcing accounts people will forget. Let customers pay the way they want. Apple Pay. Google Pay. PayPal. Klarna where it makes sense. Fewer clicks. Fewer forms. More sales. Simple.

Personal but not creepy

Be helpful in the moment. Show things that match what someone is doing right now. A nudge on an abandoned basket is fine. Following someone round the internet shouting about it is not. Think shop assistant who listens. Not salesperson who will not leave you alone.

Keep improving in small steps

The best teams treat optimisation like brushing their teeth. Small updates every day. Test a shorter checkout. Move a button. Try a different delivery promise. Look at the data on real devices not just a big monitor in the office. What works on desktop can flop on mobile.

A few numbers worth knowing

About three in four ecommerce sessions now start on mobile.
Roughly half of users bounce if a page takes more than three seconds to load.
Every extra second of delay can cut conversion by around seven percent.
About a fifth of checkouts fail due to avoidable friction.

Bottom line

Mobile is not another channel. It is the heartbeat of how people shop. If your tech design and customer journey do not reflect that you are already behind. Build for speed. Join everything up. Keep checkout short. Personalise with care. Improve a little every day.

Do that and you will win the small moments that turn a scroll into a sale.