In the hour after the U.S. Women’s Soccer team won the Women’s World Cup, 65% of online sales at sports apparel and gear retailer Fanatics came from smartphones and tablets and 50% of total web sales stemmed from smartphones alone. Mobile also accounted for 80% of traffic in that hour and 63% of traffic came from smartphones.

“We see huge mobile surges anytime something big happens in sports,” says David Katz, senior vice president of product at Fanatics. “We actually saw mobile sales spiking six minutes into the game after the U.S. Women’s team scored their second goal.”

Indeed—the Women’s World Cup scenario isn’t new for Fanatics.  For example, the retailer experienced 90% of its website traffic from mobile devices (smartphones and tablets) for University of Kentucky merchandise at the peak hour after Kentucky beat Notre Dame during the 2015 NCAA Tournament, with 81% of revenue also via mobile device. And, when Kentucky won two games to secure its spot in the Final Four, 80% of Fanatics’ web traffic for Kentucky merchandise came from a mobile device and 66% of sales. Of that 66% of sales, about 45% came from smartphones and 20% from tablets, Katz says.

Fanatics is in an ideal business to capitalize on the on-the-go shopping mobile commerce allows—sports gear sales. When a hardcore fan enjoying a game at a bar sees his team beat its archrival, there is a decent chance he will pull out his smartphone between victory shots to purchase a new T-shirt to add to his collection. And that eager fan high on the buzz of victory will not tolerate a slow mobile site, Katz says.

“Real-time passion generates real-time demand,” Katz says. “With the big spirit surrounding events there is a sense of immediacy and urgency. When people are buying on impulse or out of excitement the last thing you want to do is give them an experience that is slow or cumbersome.

That’s why when it comes to mobile, speed is Fanatics’ absolute No. 1 priority.

Fanatics has made a big effort to cut mobile key strokes in the past year, Katz says. Little things, Katz says, make a big impact on mobile conversions and sales. For example Fanatics automatically populates a consumer’s city and state after he enters his ZIP code.

The e-retailer also launched what Katz calls tappable sizes, meaning Fanatics displays sizes beneath an item and shows which are available and which are not. That means a shopper can choose a size with a single tap and also know instantly if the retailer is out of his size. Many retailers offer a more roundabout route—a dropdown menu the shopper must scroll through to find his size, and then see if it is in stock. “We are constantly reminding ourselves that the user is in a constrained space—that’s something we are always thinking about,” Katz says.

It also strives to make every step easy for the mobile consumer. “A lot of retailers hide critical elements behind dropdowns. We put necessary features front and center so people don’t have to go hunting for it.”

Fanatics also improved mobile site speed over the past year by better managing or eliminating third party tags such as analytics and images that were slowing down the site. “We looked at the load time of all of our key pages,” Katz said. “One thing I can say is speed is reflected in bounce rates and conversions. Adding a cool feature that slows down the site is almost always not worth it.”

The focus is paying off: smartphone conversions are up double digits year over year, Katz says, without being more specific.

Today, mobile is such a large part of Fanatics that it’s not thought of separately from desktop. The retailer, which in 2013 signed a lease on a San Francisco office to house 20 mobile-focused employees now says those developers and other technology staffers focus on all aspects of online sales. That office, which today houses 50 employees, no longer has dedicated mobile employees.

Fanatics made that strategy change in the past year, Katz says. “We stopped thinking of mobile as a silo,” Katz says. “Consumers aren’t making the distinction. We focus on a great all-around experience.” Part of that new way of thinking led Fanatics to begin working on a responsive design site, Katz says. That is slated for the future but Katz declined to say when it will launch.  

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