Bluestem Brands is working with Moovweb on this initiative. Since recently launching, the company claims to have improved conversions, revenue and pages per visit and length of time spent on the site by twenty percent.

“All these retailers are in tune with the sources of their traffic and wanted to take advantage of the shift to mobile,” said Mitch Bishop, chief marketing officer at Moovweb, San Francisco.

“This allows them to have a single set of Web access.”

Simple shopping
Both of the new mobile sites are available at http://m.fingerhut.com/ and http://m.gettington.com/.

The sites service lower-income shoppers who are looking for items such as consumer electronics, furniture and apparel while on the go. Consumers can set up payment plans to pay for products via the sites.

Both sites are merchandised so that product categories are stacked on top of each other on the homepage.

Each category breaks down into specific products, which helps users quickly find items. A search bar across the top of the screen also helps consumers who are looking for something specific.

Search results can be filtered by relevance, price, name, brand and user reviews.

Consumers can then zoom in on products, read descriptions, view reviews. From there, consumers can add items to their shopping baskets and check-out.

The new Gettington.com mobile site

Shop on mobile
With consumers using their devices more to shop, Bluestem Brands is smart to mobilize its business.

Consumers are increasingly expecting that their favorite brands are available with mobile sites and apps to let them shop wherever they are.

Additionally, with more brands using HTML5, giving users the same experience on mobile that they get on their desktop is becoming more important.

In Bluestem’s case, a mobile site makes sense for the company because it reaches both feature phone users and smartphones. Although smartphone ownership is growing, there is still a substantial market for feature phone users as well.

“Apps have their place, but they are are not good for securing new customers,” Mr. Bishop said.

“Apps also don’t appear in search results and Bluestem Brands wanted a consistent experience between their desktop and mobile experiences,” he said.

“I think that because our customers have the ability to have an instant update to their mobile site, it will allow them to innovate faster, and they don’t have to worry about the delay in keeping the desktop and mobile sites consistent.”

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is associate reporter on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York