We chose "adaptive" vs. responsive, because first it's much much faster load time. We optimize a separate set of css and script files, preventing a "double-loading" of the website structure. Responsive takes a lot of resources since it has to load everything at once (desktop and mobile styles and scripts). Our "adaptive" technique will detect what kind of the device the visitor is using prior to even entering the loading state. This happens on the server-side. This means that the system is smart enough to choose the files needed to be rendered for the visitor before rendering anything. This results in a much faster load time and it simply outruns any other mobile technique.
Responsive design takes more "pro" designer effort to make it look readable and usable. Responsive just breaks the columns into one column per line, resulting in bigger content area where the wording and images are. This is a big problem, because it simply breaks it without any logic behind it what and where to break lines, so you have no control over the mobile content, example: you never know if the image will be broken above or below the text,etc. With our adaptive technique it's going to be much easier to control how the content looks on mobile, especially if you don't have the advanced design knowledge.
Our Blocks Editor includes content editing for both desktop and mobile at the spot. Inside one editor you can optimize your content for all the devices, just with simply by dragging and dropping in the components you want to use. You can see how the content is going to look on mobile while editing, no html or scripting knowledge is required.
All our modules in the backoffice are highly optimized for separate rendering (desktop and mobile). We program and optimize these constantly for the clients. For responsive, there is no such thing as separate code optimization, since all devices are running the same code.
TEA and other analytics can be adjusted specifically for the mobile device, resulting in a better conversion rate.
When it comes to images, responsive needs to load THREE images at once to accommodate all the screen types (regular, 2x retina pixel rate and 3x pixel rate display), otherwise the images will be very blurry on the mobile devices. This will result in multiple seconds delay while the website is loading. Adaptive, as mentioned in the first paragraph, will choose the proper image sizes on the server and just load one, the one that fits the device best.
Some desktop elements will just not work on mobile (Application Grid on product pages), instead we have to make a custom one for mobile. If we had responsive you would see flickering all over the place and double the load time for elements that are simply not needed.
Responsive design depends a lot on javascript. When you collide other javascript, ajax, post backs, etc. that is very common for eCommerce you are asking for a non-functional website both on mobile and desktop. Responsive design was made to work with blogs, not complicated eCommerce websites. Take a look at eBay, Amazon, Target, and large retailer. They are all adaptive for a reason, and that reason is technical.
We use Google Best Practice called "Javascript-adaptive" (
https://developers.google.com/webmast...)
"This configuration is very closely related to responsive web design and our algorithms can detect this setup automatically. Further, this configuration does not have a requirement for the Vary HTTP header because the URLs of the page and its assets do not dynamically serve content. Because of these advantages, if your website requires the use of JavaScript, this is our recommended configuration."