• by Aaron Baar , May 28, 2013

How a company presents itself online is almost as important as what is presented online (and for how much) -- particularly when it comes to the mobile space. 

According to a survey from content- and customer-experience management company Kentico Digital, 85% of smartphone owners use their mobile devices to compare information about companies, products and pricing before making a purchase. But when it comes to actually making said purchase, price is not their only consideration: three-quarters of smartphone and tablet owners say the look and feel of a company’s mobile Web site plays into their purchase decision. (When it comes to Web sites that aren’t mobile-optimized, 44% of tablet and smartphone users said they’ll never return to the site, and 52% said they wouldn’t return often.)

Though it’s obviously important to make a Web site mobile friendly, nearly two-thirds of consumers (63%) said they would rather shop in a store’s physical location than through the Internet. (In fact, nearly half (45%) of those looking up a Web site on a mobile device are doing so from the store’s actual retail location.) 

“This goes beyond what businesses actually do and sell online,” said Kentico CEO Petr Palas, in a statement. “If their sites aren't mobile-friendly, people who are out and about will forge new brand relationships with competitors, and they'll take these relationships back home with them to their computers. When it comes to making and breaking customer relationships, it's all happening on mobile devices."

Among the devices, consumers still would prefer to use larger screens when shopping on their mobile devices. When asked which devices provide the best shopping experiences, 48% of the survey respondents said a computer, 40% preferred a laptop, 9% said a tablet and only 3% said a phone provided the best shopping experience.