News-flash! Smartphones and tablets can no longer be considered a fad, and people are actually using them to buy stuff. But seriously, back in June of 2012, Google even recommended that web sites use Responsive design techniques, citing a couple of reasons why:

• It keeps your desktop and mobile content on a single URL, which is easier for your users to interact with, share, and link to and for Google’s algorithms to assign the indexing properties to your content.
• Google can discover your content more efficiently as we wouldn’t need to crawl a page with the different Googlebot user agents to retrieve and index all the content.

More importantly, a Responsive design means that your site will look great and work properly on devices ranging from iPhones to Smart-fridges to web-enabled car dashboards… whatever the web-enabled device, your eCommerce site works.

The Web is no longer simply a beige, nearly square monitor. Check it out… The Boston Globe’s web site might be the poster child for Responsive design… open it up and resize your web browser, making it really narrow. It’s fully functional, regardless of how wide or narrow it is.

Possibly in response to this, LightSpeed delivered a new Responsive template with version 2.5 of its Web Store. Under the hood, the Brooklyn theme uses the Skeleton framework to deliver its Responsive functionality.

What does this mean to retailers?

More people, in more places, using whatever screen is in front of them can purchase from your web site.

It’s a revolution, and it also positions your web site for more efficient changes in the future. That’s why we at Above Studio 1 always recommend responsive design over “high concept” design.