With technology rapidly evolving, websites (especially E-commerce stores) need to make sure their sites look just as good on a smartphone as it does on a desktop. The power to use a smartphone to browse the internet, make a purchase online, download music, etc is changing the online business model as we know it.

While the first online stores and sites were designed to look just absolutely beautiful on a laptop screen, these sites and themes look compact and downright ugly on a mobile device.

Depending on your market, anywhere from 25-50% of your visitors may be viewing your site from a mobile device, and those could be potential customers you are losing out on.

How can I Get a Mobile Friendly Theme?

With E-commerce stores there are a few main things every business owner should be thinking about. The very first thing is to make sure you have a secure hosting put in place and this usually comes with a theme based store from Shopify.

I personally find Umbee Hosting to be more geared towards larger E-commerce businesses, but the main reason hosting is such a big issue is because if your site goes down for even 5 minutes, you probably just lost money.

Maybe you didn’t lose a sale during this 5 minutes of downtime, but you possibly lost an email address to add to your mailing list. Which means you lost a chance to sell them a product down the road.

Email lists are the backbone of many successful online stores, so do not think just because you weren’t able to get two emails during the downtime that that is not a big deal.

If you are a newbie to the E-commerce world, I would personally go with Shopify to handle your mobile-friendly theme needs. Shopify has a ton of free themes that can be tweaked and adjusted however you want, yet it also offers premium themes that can be purchased and used on any other Shopify site you own.

These themes can be previewed on your mobile device before you decide to choose a free or premium theme, so take your time and explore every option.

Should I Get a Premium Theme?

Based on a study, mobile internet users will break 117 million strong, up 18% from the previous year. With this growth rate and the rate technology is advancing, it is not unreasonable to think that by the end of 2016, over 150 million users will be on mobile devices.

That is an incredible amount of untapped customers if your site is not optimized for mobile devices. Even if you decided to go with a paid theme, just a single purchase from a mobile user would probably get you your money back from.

Any business who is locked into only selling to those customers on desktops and laptops are really missing out on a huge piece of the pie.

Please keep in mind that mobile responsive themes, do work better on cheaper products. Usually buying a flat iron from your new Samsung S5 is no big deal, trying to buy a $2,500 hot tub on a screen the size of your hand, probably not happening as often.

Is a Mobile Theme Even Worth It?

As we discussed above, a number of mobile users online is growing every year, and it does not seem like that number will be shrinking anytime soon.

The goal of any online business should be to reach as many customers possible while providing a clean and user-friendly website to ensure the highest amount of conversions.

A responsive mobile theme allows your business to reach more customers while providing the user experience these customers want from their mobile devices. In the end, though it really is your choice to pursue this idea or not.

To make sure you make the best business decision possible, really analyze your store and the demographic you are targeting, because while your niche or products may not be the best fit for a mobile theme; remember all it takes is a single purchase to make the responsive theme worth it.