Mobile Design< 5-minute read

Mobile E-commerce Best Practices for UX (With Infographic)

E-commerce sites and apps that are not mindful of mobile e-ommerce best practices will be left in the dust and stand to lose billions. But successful mobile e-commerce experiences can be achieved by following these mobile e-commerce UX design best practices (with infographic).


Toptalauthors are vetted experts in their fields and write on topics in which they have demonstrated experience. All of our content is peer reviewed and validated by Toptal experts in the same field.

E-commerce sites and apps that are not mindful of mobile e-ommerce best practices will be left in the dust and stand to lose billions. But successful mobile e-commerce experiences can be achieved by following these mobile e-commerce UX design best practices (with infographic).


Toptalauthors are vetted experts in their fields and write on topics in which they have demonstrated experience. All of our content is peer reviewed and validated by Toptal experts in the same field.
Miklos Philips
Verified Expert in Design

Miklos is a UX designer, product design strategist, author, and speaker with more than 18 years of experience in the design field.

Previously At

Financial Times
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In recent years, it has become widely accepted that e-commerce businesses that are not mindful of mobile e-commerce best practices will be left in the dust, and stand to lose billions. Astute mobile UX designers know it’s essential to make sure all e-commerce experiences are designed for mobile.

The phenomenal growth of e-commerce has fueled the advance of mobile e-commerce and the numbers paint a vivid picture. eMarketer expects global mCommerce sales to reach $4.5 trillion by 2024, and account for 69.9% of the e-commerce market.

What’s fueling this remarkable growth? Significantly more users are accessing the web from a mobile device rather than a desktop, and they are doing it with more e-commerce intent than ever before. They are there to shop and ready to buy.

Mobile eCommerce best practices

Mobile e-commerce, however, has special requirements for great UX. Shoppers expect an e-commerce site or app to work well on mobile—it not only has to look beautiful but it should also have seamless UX and adapt to their behaviors.

Mobile e-commerce Best Practices

There are many aspects to keep in mind for conversion-oriented mobile e-commerce design. Typically, mobile e-commerce best practices use mobile UX design best practices as a baseline, and savvy mobile UX designers take it to the next level.

Some of the must-haves:

  • Support image zooming by pinching and double-tap gestures.
  • Provide a “save” feature for the shopping cart.
  • Use descriptive, well-labeled forms, optimized for mobile.
  • Take full advantage of device features such as the camera, microphone, and GPS.
  • Prioritize search (and keep it above the fold).
  • Utilize voice recognition to speed up search and other interactions.
  • Provide intelligent auto-suggestions, auto-detection, and errors with forms.
  • Instill a sense of security and trust by displaying badges, reviews, and testimonials.
  • Provide smooth, easy, and speedy checkout.
  • Provide easy, thumb-oriented interaction.
  • Make it fast and easy to pay with built-in payment systems such as Google Pay.

Mobile eCommerce UX

Better Mobile e-commerce UX Leads the Way to an Improved Bottom Line

Mobile e-commerce trends show that the mobile e-commerce market is growing exponentially and the expansion of the industry has created a multitude of benefits for sellers. However, with this comes a slew of best practices and standards for mobile e-commerce UX design that businesses must follow if they are to be successful.

Although every e-commerce store is different having its own limitations and goals, following the mobile e-commerce best practices outlined in the infographic below will help create a more successful mobile e-commerce experience.

Mobile eCommerce UX infographic

Understanding the basics

  • What is a mobile user experience?

    Mobile user experience refers to how a person feels and thinks when using a mobile site or app. Mobile user experience design is less concerned with the look and feel of a product, and more concerned with how it makes users feel. Mobile user experience is focused on the user rather than the aesthetics.

  • 53% of mobile visitors will leave if page load time is longer than three seconds. Mobile e-commerce best practices call for a maximum of two to three seconds of load time. On desktops, the load time may take a little longer and it will still be acceptable.

  • People interact with a mobile device by performing gestures on the touchscreen. Every app, game or tool on a mobile device typically includes the ability to swipe, tap or pinch to function—called gestures. Mobile gestures are the movements made by a user to activate and use a specific control within a mobile UI.

  • The average documented online shopping cart abandonment rate for e-commerce is 69%. Seamless UX design can reduce cart abandonment greatly. The best-optimized checkout process has a cart abandonment rate of 20%.

  • Smartphone fingerprint scanners come in many different shapes and sizes. They’re important to utilize for e-commerce mobile app design. Similar to optical scanners, they generate an image of the ridges and valleys of a fingerprint, but instead of using light, the capacitors use electrical current.

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Miklos Philips

Miklos Philips

Verified Expert in Design

Austin, TX, United States

Member since May 20, 2016

About the author

Miklos is a UX designer, product design strategist, author, and speaker with more than 18 years of experience in the design field.

authors are vetted experts in their fields and write on topics in which they have demonstrated experience. All of our content is peer reviewed and validated by Toptal experts in the same field.

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