The need for greater mobility

Among them were two pieces by columnist Tom Marciw, media director with Fruchtman Marketing. Marciw started the year suggesting that jewelers make it their New Year’s resolution to explore mobile advertising for their business.

For those that saw that resolution die alongside plans to go to the gym more and spend less, Marciw followed up with a similar column in April in which he cited a number of statistics on the growing usage of smartphones and tablet consumers. While statistics vary from source to source, it is fairly widely agreed that smartphone ownership in the United States has surpassed 50 percent at this point and will continue to climb.

Now there’s yet another indication for jewelers that the time is now to invest in mobile, this one in the form of news from Blue Nile, a continued thorn in the side of engagement ring-selling independents everywhere.

While announcing its first-quarter financial results last week, Blue Nile CEO Harvey Kanter revealed that some 40 percent of site traffic now comes from mobile devices, up from 34 percent in the fourth quarter.

He also admitted that the e-tailer does not do as well as it could in converting these tablet and phone browsers into buyers. But they are working on it. “While it currently is a challenge to convert mobile users at the same rate as those coming to us from a PC, we consider this a great opportunity,” Kanter said during the call.

In the second quarter, Blue Nile will be keying in on improving the mobile experience on its site. One of the changes mentioned specifically by Kanter is the use of “touch-base navigation,” to “bring the brilliance of products closer to customers.”

Blue Nile didn’t respond to my request to elaborate on this statement but when I asked Marciw what this meant, he emailed a long response that he, quite impressively, typed out on his smartphone.

Touch-base navigation basically refers to the fact that when creating a mobile version of a website, designers need to keep in mind that users surfing the site are doing so from touch-screen devices. This, Marciw says, includes a number of considerations, from the placement of search buttons so it’s located near the user’s thumb to the gratuitous use of photos so there’s touch points all over the screen.

He adds that at Fruchtman Marketing, they now are developing one