How An Online Shopping App Can Boost Your Ecommerce?
Updated on November 18, 2022 in Ecommerce by Alifiya Mustafa
Last year, 75% of online shoppers made their purchases using a smartphone. And, by 2022, it is estimated that more than 54% of all online purchases will be done through mobile phones.
eCommerce is the largest online marketplace where millions of transactions happen each day. And to make sure that you beat the eCommerce competition and reach your target audience in the best way possible, you need to be sure that you are available to them through the device that is glued to their hands 24/7.
Yes, we are talking about mobile phones. Now, what could be the best way to give them access to you within a click? Obviously, the answer is an Online Shopping App.
Mobile applications are the gateway to a room designed by you for your consumers where they can learn about you, explore your products and services, and personalize their account, preferences, and cart as they like.
Providing just a website holds a risk of getting distracted on the web, getting your tab deleted, or landing on your competitor’s website.
An online shopping app ensures more customer loyalty as compared to not having one. Still not convinced whether you need an app or not? Let’s look at what are the benefits and reasons why should need an online shopping app for your eCommerce Business.
11 Benefits of having an online shopping app
1. Mobile commerce is in trend
To stay in the competition, you must keep up with the trends, and recently, online shopping apps are trending. This trend is not going to short-live, but it’s going to be available as long as we come up with something more personalized and easily accessible.
As explained above, more than 50% of the online sales are going to be made using mobiles by just next year. In fact, as per BuildFire, 67% of all online purchases are done using mobile phones.
Our phones are always with us, and from the consumers’ perspective, it’s a lot easier to access shopping on mobile phones as compared to turning on a laptop or desktop and searching for a particular website.
With the online shopping app, people can buy products while traveling, working, in bed, and almost everywhere. As per the chart presented above, mobile shopping is growing year by year. So, it’s time that you mark your place in the trending online marketplace by creating your very own mobile app.
Mobile commerce isn’t just trending, but dominating all online sales which makes it even more lucrative to invest in online shopping apps.
2. Consumers want to use mobile apps
How many sales do you generate that comes from mobile phones? I believe that there must be many.
Not just that, the sales that you get from other devices, chances are, that those consumers did use their mobile phones somewhere in the journey. Either it could be for research, comparison, or anything before the final purchase.
People always feel more comfortable using mobile phones rather than other devices.
As per Sweor, 85% of consumers feel that a website should look as good or even better than its desktop version.
Furthermore, 88% of people are less likely to return to a mobile site after having a bad experience. 47% of consumers expect a mobile-friendly site to load in 2 seconds or less.
So having a mobile-friendly website is certainly the first step toward increasing eCommerce sales from mobile users. But in the end, the final statistic is what matters the most, i.e:
78% of customers would rather use an online shopping application to buy from an online store than a mobile website. Yes, shocking enough —78%!
This clearly makes it easier to decide whether an online shopping app will bring success to your online store or not.
It isn’t too hard to digest though. Online shopping apps can easily improve customer experience by providing easy access to the things that they personally prefer at a faster speed.
3. Win a competitive advantage over your rivals
Currently, you’re at a disadvantage if you don’t have an online shopping app. If you think about creating one, you’ll win a competitive advantage over the brands that don’t have one.
Just think about it, if your customers are given a choice between your and another website with the exact same experience, having an online shopping app on your end can make your customer lean over to your side.
I know what you must be thinking – ‘My competitors do not have any online shopping app, then what’s there to worry about? The only effort I should be putting is in making my website better than them’
Well, unfortunately, you’re completely blind with that mentality – sorry but it’s true. The only biggest competitor in the eCommerce world is Amazon.
Billions of people in the US and across the globe have Amazon’s Prime Membership.
Today or tomorrow, every eCommerce website will have to turn to create their online shopping app to fight the competition.
You can make a smart move and be an early decision-maker by having your mobile app now.
4. Increased conversion rates
Your ultimate goal of running an eCommerce business is to earn profits. So, let’s talk numbers then. Comparing what’s performing better worldwide is the best way to understand what’s more lucrative.
Skift did this comparison and look at what they found:
If we look at these conversion funnels, it’s pretty clear that mobile apps can easily win over regular websites.
More than 85% of the shoppers added the products to their carts while using a mobile app. The views on the products are definitely higher which promises better exposure to what you’re selling.
But again, what matters the most is conversions. So, according to the chart, it’s bare that the mobile app brought 130% more conversions as compared to the mobile website.
These figures are pretty convincing on their own. Online shopping apps simply hold higher potential in providing higher sales by providing great customer experience and tough competition to the competitors.
The bottom line is, mobile apps can bring more conversions, hence, you are required to have one!
5. Mobile apps works as a marketing channel
When starting anything new, you always need to consider what effect it would be putting on your marketing campaign.
Well, an eCommerce mobile app is definitely not going to fail your expectations.
In fact, you can use your mobile app as a marketing channel. It becomes a lot easier to track your customer’s movement through your app.
Now, you can use this data to retarget your customers over social media and provide discounts on their personal favorite products through email marketing.
Your mobile app can send personalized push notifications to your shoppers to make it promote your brand even more effectively.
If not that, think about how much effort and money you need to spend on your marketing campaigns to map the journey of your customers to your website.
That vigilant tracking, continuous push on social media, and emails to make your customer land on your product page. With an online shopping app, you’ll have one good platform to communicate with your customer.
The only marketing that’d be left to do would be of the products and your shopper can easily land on your app with a single click.
6. Higher average order value
As we just concluded that using an online shopping app can easily increase online conversion rates. But, that’s not the only monetary benefit that using an app brings to your eCommerce store.
An eCommerce mobile app will also help you increase your average order value. How?
It is far more convenient to browse products on a mobile app as compared to the website. This means that users are likely to explore more products and have the advantage of using offers that you have for app users.
This ultimately encourages your customers to buy more things. Apart from that, mobile apps have higher AOV as compared to mobile or desktop websites.
If we calculate, having just $5 more for AOV on your online shopping app and bring you $500 on every 100 sales and $2500 on every 500 sales!
This creates a huge impact on your overall revenue and helps you earn more sales.
You must now be thinking – why would customers buy from apps then? It is because, apart from just getting an amazing experience on online shopping apps, you can provide enticing offers to your shoppers to encourage sales.
A sign-up bonus, daily offers for app users, and special discounts when ordered from the app are all common practices that the brands use to allure their customers into making purchases using the mobile app.
This way, you promote your products, make sales, and improve your brand recognition at the same time.
7. User-friendly and personalized experience
We’ve talked a lot about customer experience in this article. Well, the point is worth talking about too
As per the statistics, customers’ experience is going to surpass the pricing and quality that the brand offers to consumers. This means, that the consumers are more likely to prefer a brand that provides an overall good customer experience for them
Hence, creating an eCommerce mobile app is simply a step toward improving your customer service.
Personalization is another factor that is very potential in retaining customers.
For example, you must have categorized your customers on the basis of their gender, age, income, etc. so that you can target them with something that is most relevant to them.
Targeting only females between the age group of 18 to 35 for high-heels is an example of personalizing.
As per SmarterHQ, 80% of the frequent shoppers say they only shop with brands that personalize their experience.
In an online shopping app, you can simply personalize every account based on what the shopper usually prefers. If a customer has added a winter coat in his cart, you can suggest more coats of that kind, or winter boots, or any winter accessory.
You can personalize your home page based on the location from which your consumer is logged-in in the app.
You can decide to show swimming suits and beachwear to shoppers in Florida even in November, but that won’t make any sense to the shoppers living in New York.
8. Improves consumer loyalty
You make loyal customers by providing them a hassle-free shopping journey so that they choose you to shop online every time they want some product.
Keeping this in mind, online shopping apps are highly optimized as compared to websites. When interacting with a mobile app, shoppers find themselves in a more comfortable place for which they can find and purchase products without any hustle.
Here are some advantages of using an online shopping app over a website:
- Portable: Customers can use the online shopping app from any place
- Fast loading: Pages on apps tend to load faster, which attracts more customers. People shop online to save time and online store owners must understand that each second counts. If it’s taking ages to load a single product page, then the whole essence of online shopping is lost within seconds. Mobile apps make sure that this doesn’t happen.
- Personalized content: as explained above, personalization influences buyers a lot in choosing from whom to buy things
- Offline access: A well-built app even allows users to access it offline for looking at the pro\ices and comparing products to a few pages. This exciting feature highly inspires shoppers to use mobile apps over any website.
9. Reduction in cart abandonment
Your cart abandoning customers are probably your most potential customers. These folks are already familiar with your brand and your products. Now, losing such people can be a huge loss for your online store.
The worst part is, these consumers are just a few clicks away from finalizing a purchase. Then what makes them not to? Here are a few reasons for it:
- Extra costs like shipping and taxes
- Being forced to create an account
- The long and complicated checkout process
- Couldn’t see or calculate the total cost
- Website crashed or had errors
- Didn’t trust the site with credit card information
However, using an eCommerce mobile app can highly reduce cart abandonment rates. How?
Online shopping apps reduce friction in the checkout process. At the time of setting up an app only, the consumer is through with filling in the details. This way, at the time of purchasing, they’re not required to go through the same process over and over again.
The prices and all the other details are presented clearly to eliminate any confusion later. Also, customers feel safer while putting payment details on one exclusive platform rather than entering it on an open platform like a browser.
Mobile apps also provide easy online payment methods for a seamless checkout. And, one can track their order details in one single place.
Apps also enable shoppers to make changes to their orders more easily.
Let’s look at the data collected by Ruby Garage to support the fact of how mobile apps reduces cart abandonment:
10. Collaboration of advanced tech for interactive customer experience
Mobile applications follow the technology wherever it goes, and vice-versa. The implementation of Artificial Intelligence and Augmented Reality simply creates an out-of-the-world experience. Brands like IKEA are already in head-towards it.
The collaboration of AI and AR with online shopping apps leads to an enhanced customer experience that is engaging and interactive. This works like a customer catcher.
Mobile apps also allow for the integration of AI in the form of chatbots in order to facilitate the customer in searching for their preferred products and getting them through the checkout.
Personalized assistants that are powered by machine-learning algorithms would soon become an essential element of online shopping, making shopping easy and fun — as it’s supposed to be.
11. Availability of phone-native features
The phone’s native abilities and features can be leveraged using online shopping apps, which isn’t a possibility in the case of mobile websites.
The integration of built-in smartphone elements like GPS and camera provides the shoppers with an enhanced customer experience. As said, interactive shopping using AR and AI is an app-only feature.
Another benefit is the fact that native apps are available for offline use too.
Must-include features for an eCommerce mobile app
1. Notifications
Notifications and push notifications are important to stay in touch with your customers. You can send these even when the app is running in the background. You can remind your customers to come back to you or share limited offers to create urgency.
The time which you had to put in creating email listings and classifying your shoppers is eliminated with integrating notifications in online shopping apps.
2. User-friendly layout
Focus on what your customers want while developing an eCommerce mobile app. Keep the layout and interface as simple and engaging as possible.
3. Social media
Social media is the hub of billions of customers and is the best place to enhance engagement. Hence, use popular social media networks and allow users to sign-up using their social media profiles.
4. Special Offers
To entice your customers for the use of your online shopping app, create and share special offers. Discounts and offers are considered one of the best tools for marketing and promoting sales.
5. Security
We make daily payments online. It is important to understand that eCommerce websites are targeted for doing cybercrimes. Your customers need to feel safe while dealing with you. So make sure that you make no compromise in creating a secure online shopping app to retain your authenticity.
6. Cart
Adding a cart is an obvious element that your app needs to have in it.
7. Shareable wishlist
Add a wishlist feature that your buyers can share with others via email or any other social platform, and get a free advertising tool with a built-in social proof.
8. Payments
Providing various secure and credible methods of online payments is a must-have element in every mobile app. Make sure that you are providing payment options for the consumers from every location to which you serve.
For example, provide PayPal for the US shoppers and Payoneer for Europe along with all bank cards.
9. Related Items
Only the phrase “you might also like” can create a buzz and everyone sticks, searching for an ideal product. Related items are one way of upselling your products with effective results.
How to develop an online shopping app?
You can hire a professional mobile app developer, however, it should be you who decides what goes and how it goes with your online shopping app. None knows your brand and customers better than you. Hence there are a few things that can help you create a layout plan for your online shopping app:
1. Strategy
Define your goals, think about the market that you want to cover and the audience you want to target.
If you deal in B2B, then your app would more likely look more ‘corporate’ and professional kind. Where a B2C mobile app looks more friendly and casual.
Think of the actions you want your online shopping app to perform and talk your app developing team through it. This will help you get the app that you and your audience deserves.
2. Design
You need to come up with a design that is both captivating as well as user-friendly. You can take references from the apps that resemble your liking.
The first impression is the last impression, hence, don’t leave the design of your app to be taken care of later. It just takes a few milliseconds to form an opinion about something.
If your consumers or even you can’t get satisfied with the final design, then it’d be hard to come up with something that really pleases the eye.
3. Development
This is a complicated process of turning your ideas into reality and creating source code. Because of modern trends, mobile devices should be compatible with Android, iOS, and Windows, with no limits. In this regard, think about developing cross-platform apps.
4. Marketing
Marketing is a non-negotiable part of your business. Similarly, it applies to your online shopping app too. You should create a good strategy for how it will be distributed and what tactics will you use to encourage your potential users.
You can also work with marketing specialists to help you put your online shopping app out in front.
5. Maintenance
As your online shopping app will also be used for taking the personal information of your customers and making online payments, security issues may arise during and after the development process.
Creating an app is not a one-time process as it requires regular checks and maintenance. Make sure that your app developer provides complete levels of security and complete maintenance and support even after the launch.
Unless consumers trust your app, they’ll not use it. And a single mistake can scare your market forever.
Conclusion
Creating and launching an online shopping app can bring you a lot of benefits. With ongoing trends, it is essential that online stores go hand-in-hand with technology.
Apart from increasing the conversion rates, eCommerce mobile apps also give you a distinct identity to your brand and make you stand out from the ones who haven’t used this tech yet.
When you create your online shopping app, make sure that your developer sticks with you throughout to come up with trending updates and security checks. After reading this article we highly recommended reading this article ” Mobile Marketing Strategy for eCommerce“.
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