Catalog and online retailer Oriental Trading Co. recently launched a mobile site in time for the holidays to make it easy for on-the-go shoppers to purchase party supplies and gift items.

Oriental Trading wants to enhance the shopping experience for the growing numbers of busy consumers who shop via their mobile devices. The retailer’s new mobile site features quick navigation that enables users to browse products by category and make purchases from the brand’s entire inventory.

“As our customers have expanded their use of smartphones when shopping, we developed a mobile site to support these devices and provide a best-in-class shopping experience,” said Angela Drew, a spokeswoman for Oriental Trading, Omaha, NE.

“Our mobile site provides a better search, browsing and shopping experience compared to viewing the full site on a smart phone,” she said.

“Our goals is to be where our customers are in their shopping experience and drive incremental revenue as the percentage of customers using smartphones increases.”

PayPal support
The new Oriental Trading mobile site also features check-out support from PayPal and other payment options as well as a Catalog Quick Order option so users can easily search and purchase items based on their catalog product number.

Customers can also log in to manage their account and check their order status.

The new mobile site was designed in partnership with mobile platform company Usablenet.

Oriental Trading sells value-priced party suppliers, arts and crafts, toys, school supplies and giftware.

As smartphone penetration continues to grow and more consumers shop via mobile, it is important for retailers such as Oriental Trading to have a mobile site to reach a broad mobile audience.

“Consumers are now mobile in the sense that they are engaging with retail brands on their own terms, from any device, and with smartphone adoption in the U.S. surging toward 50 percent and more shoppers turning to their mobile devices to research products and make purchases, it’s essential for retailers to offer their customers a seamless way to shop on-the-go,” said Nick Taylor, CEO of Usablenet, New York.

“By introducing an optimized mobile site with seamless navigation and functionality, Oriental Trading is now able to deliver convenience and value to smartphone users anywhere, anytime,” he said.

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York