Omaha, Nebraska-based Hayneedle earned top grades in a recent study done by LightningBuy. Hayneedle is a privately-held online retailer that offers close to two million home products. It is backed by two venture capital companies, Insight Venture Partners and Sequoia Capital. LightningBuy is a single-click mobile commerce checkout platform. It enables vendors and merchants to sell directly from social media, email or digital advertisements.
In its study of the top 100 online retailers, LightningBuy took second place next to Abercrombie & Fitch. LightningBuy's 2013 Mobile Commerce Conversion Index or MCCI rates mobile sites on criteria such as ease of use and its ability to realize smartphone traffic to sales. Hayneedle.com, the flagship website of the company, was able to get good marks for its ability to allow shoppers to buy products in six screens and just three clicks.
LightningBuy said, "Hayneedle.com does everything right, from offering a guest checkout, having the appropriate keyboard for the type of data the consumer must enter, enabling touch controls and eliminating distractions on each screen. Hayneedle.com has a breadcrumb trail, security assurance and offers PayPal/mobile wallet. The load time for a random product page was less than four seconds and Hayneedle earned bonus points for effective mobile selling from its presence on both Facebook and Twitter."
In a statement, Hayneedle Chief Marketing Officer Brian Moen said they are happy with the survey's results. He added that they started to see smartphone traffic multiply each month beginning late in 2011 and thus had a task force work on building m.hayneedle.com.
Moen added, "We continued to enhance the product to provide a better experience for those shoppers as we watched phone sessions grow as much as 40 percent through the first half of 2012. Today, nearly 30 percent of our site visitors are arriving on a mobile device. That is almost double what we saw in 2012 and nearly half of our mobile visitors are using a smartphone. We continue to enhance our site performance across devices to create a more immersive, consistent brand experience for our customers."
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