It's a Wrap! (Eventually)

Now that I'm using a mobile-friendly "responsive" theme, I'm courting smartphone users instead of trying to deflect their clicks. Yes, mobile shoppers are still of much lower quality than desktop, laptop, and even tablet users. People seldom buy anything on the telephone unless they do it the old-fashioned voice way. But the mobile market segment is growing too quickly to ignore and Google is bullish on mobile, so one must fall in line.

Therefore it is time, once again, to reconsider giftwrapping. 

When one clicks (or taps) the Add to Cart button of a product that has options, Sunshop opens the product detail page instead of putting the item in the shopping cart. Almost all of my products have options, and most of those are giftwrap choices. Real computer users figure this out quickly enough, but it's less obvious on a phone. You don't want to confuse somebody who just decided to make a purchase...especially not the easily distracted and impatient mobile shoppers. They're too likely to leave when the Add to Cart button doesn't add to cart. 

I'd be OK with some of them dropping away if more than one person in a thousand ever bought giftwrapping, but that extra screen just inconveniences the 99.9% of my customers who take the default "No giftwrapping" option. 

I like giftwrapping because it's pure profit that goes directly into my pocket and pads my paychecks by $100-120 per year. Earning $3 in a few minutes blows away my usual $3 per hour pittance. I dislike giftwrapping because it only ever sells during the Christmas season, when I can least spare the extra order processing time.

Now that we're right on the verge of that season, I've decided to keep the giftwrap option through one more Christmas before I kill it.     
       
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Business remains breathtakingly bad, as next week's numbers will show. This week is going to be the second-worst of the year.