What Are The Advantages of m-commerce Apps for Online Sales?
Take Advantage of These Trends & Design Tips for M-Commerce Apps Designed to Improve Your Online Sales.
Nowadays it’s not even a question whether business owners need to optimize their e-Commerce site for mobile devices. As the number of mobile users grows, the real question store owners are faced with is whether to develop a custom e-commerce mobile app or go responsive / mobile friendly.
There are obviously some huge advantages to m-commerce, but before you decide to jump on the mobile app wagon — make sure that it’s going to benefit your businesses bottom line.
In this article, I’m covering the main advantages of m-commerce apps, their trends, design, and what’s most important — the development cost. Stay tuned!
What are the advantages of m-commerce apps?
Recent surveys show that more than half of customers who have m-commerce apps downloaded use them to check for prices, discounts, and special offers. They also read reviews and, of course, check out using their mobile devices. Customers are more likely to buy products with the help of their smartphones than PC, and who can blame them?
After all, 9 out of 10 customers have their phones in their pockets most of the day.
Mobile app users often purchase items impulsively because smart devices have made the purchase process as simple as “click, click, done”. No need to reach a shop, look for cash or even grab the credit card!
Are you taking advantage of m-commerce?
If you’re not, you’re already losing customers.
According to Google’s research, 61% of customers won’t buy from a company that offers no mobile-friendly experience.
Your business doesn’t have to have a custom mobile app to enjoy the advantages of m-commerce though… Another option is responsive websites, or mobile first formatting.
So, what is going to be best for you?
M-commerce trends
To answer that question you should find out if your responsive e-Commerce website can achieve a personalized shopping experience by accomplishing the following M-commerce trends. Let’s take a look at 7 mobile trends that you might want to see in your app or website.
Chatbots
Customers like communicating with brands via messengers more than over phone calls or emails.
Chatbots help to automate communications with customers and they are available 24/7. Moreover, with the development of AI and ML technologies, bots learn more data about app users. So it’s much easier to develop a personalized shopping experience.
AR Technology
If you want your application to stand out, think of integrating Augmented Reality.
Many buyers would love to see how products will look like in their homes or workplaces. Moreover, 41% of users stated that they would buy merchandise if they had the ability to test it via AR.
Geofencing
Stores that implemented Geofencing received no less than 18% boost in sales.
A Study by Bain & Company shows that a little increase of 5% in customer retention, can lead to a profit increase of 25% to 95%.
Geofencing is a location-based service that businesses use to engage their audience by sending relevant messages to smartphone users who enter a pre-defined location or geographic area. Smart businesses will send product offers or specific promotions to customers’ smartphones when they trigger a search in a particular geographic location, enter a mall, neighborhood, or store.
Simple Purchasing
By asking users to complete fewer steps during the registration, you can easily boost the number of impulse purchases. Customers don’t have to retype their contact or payment details over and over again to complete the order so they have time to browse for other goods.
Personalized Shopping Experience
I’ve already mentioned that personalization is one of the main e-commerce trends in 2019.
I’m not just talking about building up a customer list or offering promos.
True eCommerce personalization means showing individualized offers, product recommendations, and other content to your visitors based on their previous actions, demographics, and other personal data.
OptinMonster published these great examples of personalized shopping experience for eCommerce:
- Deliver Weather-Sensitive Personalization
- Adjust Navigation to Visitors’ Interests
- Recommend Product Categories Based on Browsing Behavior
- Personalize Search Results
- Send Personalized Email Based on User Behavior
- Use Geo-Location Targeting
- Show Category-Specific Discount Coupons
- Sort Recent Products by Interest Level
- Suggest Complementary Products
- Pitch an Upsell at and after the Purchase
- Remind Shoppers of Previous Engagements
- Use a Style Finder
- Show Product Recommendations Below the Product
- Personalize the Homepage Banner by Category
- Show Personalized Offers to Returning Visitors
Big Data
Data algorithms become more and more important for e-commerce.
Data allows companies to better understand the wants and needs of their customers and their industry as a whole. Managers are able to create targeting and retargeting campaigns geared towards offering consumers exactly what the data indicates they are looking for. Design promotions that offer discounts for customers using data gathered about trends in the marketplace.
What about m-commerce app designing?
Exactly…. what about it?
Earlier in the game of mobile commerce many believed m-commerce apps would reign supreme. Many m-commerce apps were designed to achieve the following eCommerce functionalities on mobile:
Let users examine the product better
Customers can surely see the product as a whole when checking its large image.
Still, they can’t closely examine all the details and make sure it has no damages, etc. The research conducted by Baymard Institute shows that 40% of m-commerce apps don’t support touch gestures thus it’s simply impossible to zoom the picture. So if you’re building an app that supports touch gestures like double touch or pinch, you’re adding it to the list of 60% dominating products.
Add ‘Save for later’ feature
Unfortunately, about 68% of customers that already added products to their shopping carts don’t proceed with checking out. They have different reasons for that but what’s left is that customers won’t buy items they spent time looking for.
Having a ‘Save for later’ feature allows customers to complete the checkout next time. It works much better for user engagement than emptying the shopping cart automatically. This way, buyers can continue shopping when it’s more convenient for them.
Mind the security
Remember that users entrust your app their personal and payment details, and they do care about the security of this information. If your app looks secure, it will definitely make a lot better in your customers’ eyes and increase the conversion rate. In order for the customers to see that your product is well-protected and secure, add trust marks like those provided by Comodo or SSL Value.
Speed checkout process up
Not all your customers want to spend time on creating an account.
Quite opposite – Baymard’s survey shows that 35% of users will quit checking out if there’s a need to register. Thus, think of adding a guest checkout feature that will be clearly seen. Another good gesture is displaying the total number of steps during checkout and letting customers know how close they are to completing the purchase.
Add automatic suggestions
Remember these websites that show you no results because of a single typo in the search query?
Makes everyone feel angry. And it’s time for auto-suggestions to step in and rescue us. Apps that have this feature enabled allow users to speed the process of filing various forms up. Same for payment details. Customers can forget about reaching out to their credit cards to complete the order each and every time. And this, again, results in boosting conversion rates.
Create a visible search bar
A search bar is one of the most valuable elements when it comes to e-commerce. If users can’t find what they’re looking for on your website within 2 minutes, they will most probably search for another provider. Thus, make sure that the search bar is at the forefront of the app’s main page. And don’t forget about auto-completion and search suggestions we mentioned previously. It greatly saves your customers’ time and corrects spelling mistakes instantly.
None of the features listed above requires an app.
Most eCommerce platforms such as BigCommerce, Shopify, 3D Cart and Magento offer these basic functions built into the mobile design. If they’re not then they can easily be added through the use of 3rd party apps from the admin console.
Also,
Mobile web is actually driving two times the site traffic of apps, and only 20 to 30 percent of a retailer’s mobile sales come from their app. ~Venturbeat
Currently, if you’re in the market for a more personalized mobile shopping experience, chances are that you can achieve it without the use of Custom m-Commerce apps.
There are times in which a branded mobile app could benefit your business. Essentially, the only reason to go this route would be to achieve a personalized experience or function that is currently unattainable through 3rd party apps.
If this indeed matches your requirements, keep reading.
How much an e-commerce app will cost you?
We already know what to pay attention to during the development. So now’s the perfect time to find out how much the actual app building will cost you.
As you may know, the cost of software development services depends on the actual time developers spend working on your project. The more features your app is going to have, the more time will be needed to build the product. And the price will be higher accordingly.
Here’s a short list of features devs spend more time on:
Shopping cart. As it includes integration of various payment system, the development will take from 70 to 110 hours.
Profiles. It’s a profile where users can enter and save their contact details, profile image, check order history an so on. Takes from 35 to 50 hours to implement.
Main screen. As you’re selling products, there’s no way your app can go without search and filter products features. Average dev time is 30-45 hours.
Product details. On this page, users check product photo and details, rate the item or add their review. It’s also possible to share the product on Facebook and Instagram. Average time – 20 – 40 hours.
In order to calculate the approximate time developers require, let’s divide the whole process into four work types:
- Design (120-200h)
- Android/iOS development (200-300h)
- Back-end development (130-170h)
- Non-development and meetings (150-250h).
As you can see, the total amount of hours needed to build an e-Commerce mobile app is about 600-900h.
Finally, to calculate the price, you need to multiply this amount by hourly development rates in your region. As an option, check the list of e-commerce companies and hire an outsourcing team. Their rates are usually lower than US, Canadian or Australian devs. Middle and large-sized offshore companies often have managers fluent in English and developers that bring top-rated products to life.
