Best Buy is one of the retailers providing a strong mobile customer experience, according to a new study from the e-tailing group.

Best Buy along with HSN, Target, bags and REI all achieved a score of 80-plus using e-tailing group?s new Mobile Customer Experience Index. While encouraging, the fact that there are only five retailers scoring 80 or above shows that is still work to be done to deliver a customer-centric shopping experience.

?The mobile shopping experience is important because of mobile?s ability to provide access to shopping anywhere, anyhow and to quickly gather product information and more importantly find the best price,? said Lauren Freedman, president of the e-tailing group, Chicago.

?Retailers get this and they are investing,? Ms. Freedman said.

?One of the biggest hurdles is deciding how much to invest, do I need an app and, if so, what should that be as well as how do I get this to all work together from a platform perspective so that it?s efficient to run my business,? she said.

With the mobile landscape continuing to evolve rapidly, the e-tailing group did a follow up to its third quarter commerce Shopping Study to take a look at how the space is changing and what the emerging trends are. The new study is based on an audit of 160 metrics on 50 mobile sites.

Consistency builds brands
The Mobile Customer Experience Index assesses the performance of five key pages on mobile Web sites, presence and execution of merchandising tactics and customer service.

Leaders in mobile customer experience such as Best Buy are focusing intently on delivering a superior customer experience in the mobile space.

?They have taken great pains to deliver a consistent experience that their customer will be familiar with so it translates to strong branding,? Ms. Freedman said.

?Additionally, they have invested in the customer experience to facilitate shopping which should mean greater sales, higher add on purchasing for stronger AOV?s and greater satisfaction all around,? she said.

Retailers had a good showing when it came to enabling mobile shoppers to find a store, contact customer service and search for product. Where they need some work is in enabling mobile user to check store product availability and making purchases.

On a category basis, technology mobile retailers were on top, with a score of 72.62 on the Mobile Customer Experience Index. Mass merchants were next with a score of 69.41, followed by drugstores (69.19), accessory and shoe mobile merchants (67.04), home and garden (66.16), apparel (63.25), sporting goods (60.21) and department stores (60).

It?s not a surprise that technology mobile retailers or mass merchants were at the top of the list because they are investing heavily across the board, per Ms. Freedman.

?Beauty and drugstores is interesting and given the cross-channel nature of the business and the strong brands and their desire to deliver very user-friendly and brand-centric shopping experiences, I?m not surprised,? Ms. Freedman said.