Online retailer Foothealth.com has stepped up its game with a mobile Web site optimized for various smartphone platforms.

Foothealth.com tapped ecommerce service provider ShopVisible, which has extended its tools and services to the mobile environment, to create a mobile retail experience for consumers. ShopVisible Mobile, and thus Foothealth.com, runs on all major mobile devices, including iPhone, BlackBerry, Android and Windows Mobile devices, and was designed with the specific requirements of the mobile environment in mind.

“We pursue strategies that let us move much faster than the bigger players in the market,” said Puneet Mehta, cofounder of Foothealth.com, Atlanta. “Our site is more agile and much faster, and our strategy is to take advantage of the new technologies that come out.

“Mobile commerce has been growing relatively fast—8-10 percent of all retail sales will be processed via mobile in the next couple of years—so we decided that it was time for us to get aggressive in the mobile commerce space,” he said.

“The nature of Foothealth.com is such that the demographic is a little older, but 50-plus consumers are pretty tech-savvy, and we’re trying to give them one more way to buy from us.”

Foothealth.com is an online and mobile retailer of foot care health products and orthotics to help treat plantar fasciitis, bunions, arch pain and other foot conditions.

ShopVisible delivers tools and services designed to streamline and advance retailers’ online businesses.

Mobile commerce on the up and up
Mr. Mehta said that he is seeing more consumers using mobile devices for purchases and buying decisions.

In order to stay competitive in the marketplace, Mr. Mehta said that he knew Foothealth.com needed to offer a robust mobile retail site on par with its online storefront.

While purchasing via mobile devices is still in its infancy, a significant number of consumers research their purchases in real time via a mobile device, making it imperative for retailers to create an optimum mobile experience, according to ShopVisible.

ShopVisible claims that its mobile commerce platform enables faster load times by creating ‘lighter versions’ of ShopVisible client sites specifically optimized for a mobile browsing and shopping experience. Its user interface lets users browse retailers’ products and make purchases via services such as PayPal or Amazon using their mobile phone.

The ShopVisible Mobile platform recognizes when a consumer is accessing Foothealth.com from a mobile device and automatically makes adjustments to customize the site and viewing experience.

Features of ShopVisible Mobile include:

• Integration with Amazon Mobile Payments and PayPal Mobile

• In-site search functionality and mobile search-friendly infrastructure

• SEO-friendly for mobile search

• Consumers can buy products directly from the device or push a button to order by phone

• Retailers can control and change content

• Eliminates the need for extra integrations, tying all orders and traffic directly into the same site management tools and business processes already in place

• Comprehensive traffic and order analytics

• Easy-to-deploy promotion codes

• Live shipping calculations against UPS, Fedex and USPS

Customers can also choose to sign up for SMS messages for Foothealth.com to receive promotions.

Users can click on a link embedded within a text message to transact via their mobile device.

“Foothealth.com is another example of retailers realizing that mobile devices are ubiquitous, the new way people are finding products and doing research,” said Sean Cook, CEO of ShopVisible, Atlanta. “What’s rapidly growing is their tendency to transact and look for products to buy via mobile devices.

“We’ve always prided ourselves on being innovators of ecommerce technology, so it was a natural extension to be able to find and buy products using their handsets,” he said. “The payment method is critical, because we know the user experience on mobile different than when you have a full keyboard at your disposal.

“Amazon, PayPal and Google Checkout make it a much smoother user experience.”