It took no real science to convince us that Responsive websites would outperform their non-mobile-optimized brethren. We’d made that leap of faith (more of a small step, really) long ago. Without objective data, though, it’s hard to separate the facts from the closely held beliefs.
We should start by noting that optimizing sites for mobile screens takes time. In order for a site to look and perform well on a wide range of screens and devices, a fair amount of work needs to go in to designing the site to, well, respond to those conditions. That time adds cost.
So, with little data supporting our belief and more cost required to perform the work, we had set ourselves up for a recurring conversation with clients. “We know this will help you, you’ll just have to trust us with a bigger part of your budget.” You could say that just about everything we do has to be taken on some measure of faith. A lot of our work happens before a site ever launches. But, it’s always easy for a client to view a new technique or model as an add-on. Especially in the case of ecommerce, where the site’s explicit purpose is to drive a return on investment.