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Modern technology has made mobile apps an indispensable component of every organization. They have altered the way that businesses can interact with their clients. When a mobile eCommerce app development is available, there is no need to rely on bulletin boards or printed materials to advertise special deals or discounts.
11 Reasons Why You Need an eCommerce Mobile App
There are no limits to eCommerce business. Online shopping is more popular than ever. The statement is true for all industries. Internet power has allowed you to connect with consumers anywhere and anytime. The type of device you use to target them will make a big difference in your business.
Mobile consumption is a fact. A recent survey found that 96% of Americans own mobile phones. 81% of people own a smartphone. Take a look around. Look around. You, as a businessman, need to adapt and recognize that. What can you do to leverage this data and increase your eCommerce sales? Your eCommerce store needs a mobile application.
You will not be able to maximize the potential of your eCommerce store with just a web page. You'll see that the latest eCommerce trends are moving in a mobile-first direction. We consult business owners all too often who are satisfied with their eCommerce website's growth, revenue, and sales. They don't think a mobile application is needed.
This guide was inspired by my experience. You must build a mobile app if you wish to keep your website and brand relevant for the next few years. Here's why:
1. The Mobile eCommerce Trend is on the Rise
Mobile devices are now the most popular way to shop online. Look at the sales statistics and find out what devices are being used by your customers to shop. Many of these people likely browse and buy using their smartphones or tablets.
In the next two to three years, mobile commerce is expected to account for 73% of global eCommerce sales. Mobile shopping is already a habit for many people. This is so much easier than having to wait for a computer. We can always reach our phones, unlike a desktop or laptop computer.
Mobile ecommerce allows consumers to buy from anywhere. People can buy using mobile marketing on a bus, train, or Uber. Shoppers can shop while on their lunch breaks or walking along the street. The convenience is great.
Mobile app development is the most effective way to increase your eCommerce website's share in future years as mobile sales will continue to rise. Shopping mobile apps have grown at 54% per year. This is the fastest rate of any app category.
We put it in perspective. Mobile app use is growing at an average rate of 6% per year across industries. Shopping is 48% more than average. It's not always necessary to read between the lines when making decisions.
The eCommerce industry is dominated by mobile sales. Shopping apps are growing more quickly than any other app type on the market. You'll automatically know eCommerce apps will increase mobile commerce sales.
2. Customers Prefer Mobile Applications
Do you generate eCommerce sales using mobile devices but without an app? Let's assume that the answer to this question is "yes." You may be pleased with the data, knowing you are reaching smartphone and tablet users through your mobile website. You're only scratching the surface.
Don't get me wrong. A mobile-friendly site is essential, whether you're using an app or not. 84% of users say a place should be as good as or better than the desktop version.
88 % of customers are also less likely to revisit a mobile website after having a negative experience. People expect mobile sites to load within 2 seconds.
A mobile-friendly site will help you generate eCommerce sales. The following statistics are what matters. 78% of customers would prefer to use an app than a mobile site when buying from an online shop. That's right--78%.
This is important. If you currently get 100 mobile transactions a week, approximately 80 of these people prefer to buy through your native app. These are existing customers. Imagine the number of people that you are neglecting by not having an app.
The top two reasons are convenience and speed. Mobile apps offer an overall better shopping experience. Consider your habits. Would you prefer to purchase something online from an app or a website? Apps will provide an optimal user experience no matter how responsive or fast a mobile site is.
If your eCommerce website doesn't offer a mobile application, then you are neglecting a large portion of the market and providing an inferior experience to existing customers. Even if your ecommerce site is built on a well-known platform such as Shopify or Magento, this still holds. Your online store will be taken to the next step with an app builder.
3. Gain a Competitive Advantage
It's a continuation of the last point. Your eCommerce site is currently at a disadvantage without a mobile application. Customers will inevitably stop using your mobile website. They prefer to shop on mobile apps. Fortunately, there are still mobile sales, but they won't continue forever. Being an early adopter and developing an eCommerce mobile application will put you ahead of other sites without one.
The app can help a customer decide between you and your competitor's site. We've heard this before from business owners. There's no need to get a mobile application if you don't believe that any of your competitors use one. For now, you'll focus your efforts on creating a website that is better than the competition.
Amazon is the only eCommerce retailer that competes with it. They sell everything. Amazon Prime is available to 95 million members in the United States. Amazon may not stock your brand-name products. How unique are you, though? Is it possible for a customer to get something similar on Amazon? Probably.
If you want to attract customers, your website should always be a reflection of the Amazon experience. You'll lose customers if you can't meet these standards. Only a mobile commerce application can replicate the shopping experience.
Another thing to remember. Today, a mobile app can give you an advantage in the market. But that will not last forever. Everyone will eventually have their mobile commerce apps. It's best to start creating one right away, so you can get a jump on those who are late.
4. Increased Conversion Rates
Refocus on the numbers. Everything you do should ultimately boost your key performance indicators and benefit your bottom line. A great way to begin is by tracking conversions. We'll look at how mobile apps and mobile websites differ. When shopping on an app, consumers view 286% more items and add them to their cart 85% faster than when using a mobile web browser.
It's great for brand exposure and product sales. We'll discuss this in more detail below. The number of products viewed in a session and the rate at which they are added to your cart is excellent. But what counts is conversions. As you can see in the graph, mobile apps are 130% more likely to convert than mobile sites.
Imagine the amount of money that you could make if your conversion rate instantly increased by 130%. You won't have to worry about how many customers will be added once the app goes live.
5. Improve Marketing Communication
It's straightforward to get excited by the numbers when you are making a significant decision about your business. This platform is far more than just a mobile application for your online shop.
Marketers dream of mobile apps. You can generate more profit from current and potential customers by improving your marketing campaign. You can't expect to drive conversions without a mobile application. How often should the person visit your site? Your best customers don't have to purchase something daily or weekly.
You spend money on social media and email campaigns to reach out to your customers through other channels. Push notifications are a great way to reach your customer base with a mobile application.
60 % of users will open an email, but only 20 % of people who receive push notifications. After the push message has been opened, 40 percent of users click on it or interact with it, compared to only 5.4% for emails.
Push notifications can be a great way to stay in touch with customers. This is because users don't need to take any action. It would help if you had them use the social media platform to see your advertisement or post, navigate to your site, then convert. There are just too many steps.
Email communication is no different. To get your website, a person has to sign up for your emails, open the message, read it, and then click on a link.
Push notifications will display a message directly on the user's screen. It works just like text messages. The user is directed to the application when they open the message.
6. Purchase Value Increase
A mobile app can improve the experience of users and increase conversion rates. There are other monetary advantages to building an eCommerce app.
This makes sense, considering that we have previously discussed how mobile apps allow users to view more products per session. When people shop from their mobile apps, it's much easier to browse. It gives people a better chance to consider what you have on offer.
The average value of mobile apps is higher than that of desktop and mobile screens. It's enormous to increase your AOV even by $10. Let's keep it simple and say that you have 1000 mobile transactions each month.
An increase of $10 in your AOV would result in an extra $10,000 per month and $120,000 annually. This is without taking into account the additional transactions that you will receive from using a mobile application. In reality, this number is even higher.
7. Create an Individualized Shopping Experience
The success of an eCommerce business is dependent on personalization. You might be already using personalization to boost eCommerce sales. You can segment customers based on their location, age, or gender when they sign up for your emails. You can then send targeted emails for a better experience.
You can also personalize your homepage when someone visits your site based on the user's location. When you are selling clothing, customers in New York City should not see bathing suits in December, while a Miami customer could.
Most eCommerce sites use these basic strategies. A mobile eCommerce app can take personalization to a new level. You can track the browsing history and purchases of a user to make custom recommendations.
It's possible to do this from a web page, but you'll need the user to be logged in all the time. This can't happen with an app. When shopping online, 63% of customers want to have a more personalized experience. The figure has increased from just 57% two years earlier. Overall, we can see that this trend is also on the Rise.
This personalization strategy can be combined with the push notifications campaigns that we discussed earlier. You can target notifications with your ecommerce application based on the user's preference rather than send the same message to all users.
Customers can easily access their complete purchase history through an app, making it easier to order repeat purchases quickly. The customer profiles are also used for tracking customer rewards. We will discuss this in more detail later.
8. Increase Customer Loyalty
Implementing a loyalty program is a great way to encourage your customers to make more purchases. A mobile eCommerce app increases your chances of getting customers to participate in this kind of program.
Loyalty programs are also more attractive to consumers. They make them 82% likelier to purchase from sites. It would help if you took full advantage of this. Apps allow customers to view their program status in real-time, which is related to the previous point on personalization.
Your customers will be motivated to spend more to earn their next reward through a loyalty program. You can set up a loyalty program based on the transactions. It's like a punch card. You can order something five times and receive a discount for your 6th.
A loyalty program can also be implemented by rewarding customers for how much money they spend in a specific time frame. Spending $500 over a year, customers will receive some sort of benefit or reward. Spending $1,000 will earn you even greater rewards.
This encourages customers to spend more and increase their order values. You may already have an existing loyalty program. The same promotion can be run through an app on your mobile device.
9. Reducing Cart Abandonment Rates
The abandonment of shopping carts is a severe problem for online businesses. This is one of your most important KPIs. Cart abandonment can be frustrating because customers are usually only a few clicks from completing the transaction. What went wrong? Here are the most common reasons why shopping carts get abandoned:
- Additional costs such as shipping and tax - 60%
- Forced to create an account - 37%
- The checkout process is too long and complex - 28%
- Can't calculate or see the total price - 23%
- The site crashed, or errors were found - 20%
- Don't trust sites with your credit card info - 19%
The most frequent reasons that carts are abandoned, aside from the money factor, have to do with user experience. You can see that mobile apps are the ones with the lowest abandonment rates compared to desktop and mobile sites. Mobile apps for ecommerce reduce the friction of checkout. All preferences of a client are stored in the app settings once they have purchased something.
When it's time to purchase something else, the customer won't need to type their name and address for shipping or billing information manually. You can complete the entire purchasing process in just two clicks.
You can accept other payment options with mobile apps. Apple Pay, Google Pay, or PayPal are examples of mobile payment methods that you can use. You can integrate these payment methods in your checkout pages so that a customer can purchase something by simply scanning their finger.
Every additional step of the checkout gives customers a chance to abandon the cart. You can reduce abandonment by using a mobile application to decrease the steps.
The payment gateway is compatible with both iOS and Android, so your users can download the app from either app store.
10. Customers will receive Enhanced Service
Better customer service will lead to more spending. According to 73% of consumers, a positive customer service experience encourages them to spend more and shop for longer. This is something you need to consider when designing your mobile ecommerce app.
Make sure customers can easily find your contact details. Instead of forcing customers to search on Google or navigate to your site, provide a "call us button" directly within the app.
Live chat is also available through the app. You can track your customer's orders from the time they purchase something until it arrives at their door. This is possible on a mobile site, but the UX of an app will be much better. Mobile sites are not as responsive for something so resource-intensive.
11. Increase Retention Rates
You should feel delighted if you can generate sales through eCommerce. However, the sales are not all that tells you. What percentage of your revenue comes from returning customers? According to studies, acquiring new clients can cost up to 25x more than selling an item to a current customer. By increasing retention by 5%, profits can rise by 25-95%.
After downloading an app, 38% return at least 11 times. The user will likely make multiple purchases during these 11+ visits. The app is also used by mobile users frequently. There is a 50% likelihood that mobile users will return to an eCommerce app in the first 30 days after purchasing something.
Push notifications can be used to get users back into your app, even if they aren't using it as often as you would like. You can offer a special deal or flash sale to entice users to purchase from your app. These opportunities are not available on a mobile or desktop website.
What Is The Best Way To Develop Mobile Apps For Ecommerce?
You have to be careful from beginning to end when building a mobile platform. You have to think about many factors to answer the question, "How do you build an effective ecommerce application?" From its navigational ease to accessibility to the technology stack, there are many aspects to take into consideration. This is not possible without a suitable procedure. Let's go through the best process for developing an eCommerce mobile app:
Step 1: You Need To Know Your Target Market And Users
Mobile apps that fail are often due to poor market research. Do thorough research on your market before developing an eCommerce app.
A. Determine your Market
You must answer the following questions to understand your target market and your customers:
- What is the target market?
- Which age range do they belong to?
- What are their favorites and least favorite things?
- Which products do they use now?
This data can help you make your app more relatable to the users. If you own an offline shop, for example, customers may want a consistent experience across all touchpoints - both online and off. If you run an online-only eCommerce, you may want to concentrate on marketing the service through app stores to grow your business.
B. Determine your Unique Value Proposition
Customers have many mobile commerce choices, and it is essential to identify what makes you unique. This will help them choose your business over the competition. By giving clients a compelling reason to use your mobile commerce platform, a unique value proposition can attract and retain customers.
It can help you to make business decisions by ensuring that all your efforts are focused on providing value for your audience. Discover your goals and know what your users and market want. Then, move forward.
Step 2: Choose your Business Model
You must understand your business model if you are planning to create an eCommerce application. Before developing an application, you can create a business model that will help you understand your customer segment and value proposition. In general, mobile apps for mCommerce have either of two different business models.
- B2C (Business to Consumer): The most popular approach when starting an eCommerce online business. B2C transactions include anything you purchase in an online eCommerce store. Examples are Walmart, Wish, and Gap.
- B2B (Business to Business): An eCommerce company uses this model to sell its goods or services online to other companies.
Sometimes, the purchaser is the final user. The buyer may resell the item purchased to the consumer. Its examples include enterprise eCommerce platforms like Boeing.
When choosing a business model to suit your mobile eCommerce app, you must know the market well and be honest about your potential value. It is always recommended to create a business model canvas to better understand the model.
Step 3: Decide your Tech Stack
You now know the business model of your app and have done your research. Now it's time for you to choose the technologies that will be used to create an eCommerce application. This decision will have a direct impact on the cost of developing an eCommerce app.
A. Hybrid vs. Native Apps
When choosing between hybrid and native apps, it's essential to consider the market. Native apps offer the best user experience, performance, and functionality. However, they are more expensive and require additional effort to create.
Hybrid apps, on the other hand, can be developed more quickly and at a lower cost but cannot provide the same performance and functionality as native apps. Your organization's resources and requirements will determine whether you choose hybrid or native.
B. Frontend and Backend Technologies
To provide an intuitive and seamless user experience, you must carefully choose the frontend and rearing technologies of your mobile commerce platform.
Swift, Kotlin, and React Native are popular front-end languages. Backend development is primarily done using Node.js. Ruby on Rails and Django are the three most popular frameworks. When choosing your technology, it's essential to take into account variables such as scalability and security.
C. Include the Following Features
Features include:
- Catalogs that are mobile-friendly
- Secure payment processing.
- Track inventory in real-time.
- Customized suggestions
Consider functions that enhance user experiences, such as social sharing, simple checkout, and straightforward navigation. The essential elements you choose will ultimately depend on the business goals and market that your website is aimed at.
Conclusion
You need a mobile application for your eCommerce store. These numbers are enough to convince you. Here are 11 reasons, based on data, why eCommerce stores should make this a top priority. This is a quick recap of some critical KPIs:
- Conversions increase
- Higher average order value
- Abandonment rates reduced
- High retention rates
There isn't a single eCommerce owner who doesn't wish to improve their metrics. In addition, mobile apps are preferred by consumers. It is an important reality. It's now time to act. You might be apprehensive if you have never created an app.
It's easier to build an app than you might think. Cyber Infrastructure Inc. allows you to create a mobile eCommerce app without having to write any code. No technical knowledge is required to create an app using our platform.
Please let us know if you require any assistance or a build. You can count on us to provide you with as much help as you need.
