We have finally ushered in the Mobile era of the year 2019. With a lot of emphasizing on eCommerce mobile apps and ways to stay mobile, the eCommerce industry has entered an era that works towards improving their businesses by remodeling the user experience. While everything has gone online from buying foods, groceries, fashion apparels, and even housing, you should be focused on providing all this with a seamless experience on smaller screens like smartphones, tablets, iPhone or iPad. Like every year even this year, it’ll be the survival of the fittest in the eCommerce businesses.
With the increase in the popularity of mobile phones and hand-held devices, the prominence of m-commerce has increased as well. E-commerce app is a preferred option for online shoppers. In the past 6 months, 79% of smartphone users have made a purchase using their mobile devices. Moreover, with the saturation of the eCommerce industry, the importance of a mobile app cannot be ignored. The convenience-craving consumers have made it inevitable for the marketers to believe that eCommerce mobile apps are not just a fad.
Having just an online website in today’s time is not enough. Having an eCommerce mobile app for your business is mandatory. If you take a look at this study, you’ll find that 86% of the time users spend is on mobile apps whereas; only 14% is devoted to browsing the websites on their mobile phones. Don’t you now think that you should invest in mobile apps? Despite the popularity of mobile phones, the discussion of mobile apps versus mobile sites is still on. The graph below shows some statistics that can make adds to the reason why you should have an eCommerce mobile app.
Image source: Pakman.com
There are numerous reasons which eCommerce make apps better than websites and we’ll focus on them in this blog. eCommerce mobile app maker allows you to stay updated without delving into the complexity of the app development. Read on to find out the reasons why you should be thinking of having a mobile app.
1. Mobile apps are speedy
At the end of the day, what would you prefer – users coming, finding their product, check out, and happy feedback or waiting till the website loads for minutes and takes forever to load the product pages?
The choice is certainly clear because as an e-merchant you don’t want to make your business suffer. If you take a closer look, you’ll find that mobile applications are 1.5 times faster than the websites which for sure makes the mobile apps better than the websites. For example,
Mobile app: The user clicks on the app from the many available, uses the filters or the search bar to type what they’re looking for and finally landing on the product page. In addition, they can save the details directly on their phones.
Mobile website: Clicks on the browser icon, types the website name, waits for it to load, searches the products, waits for it to load and show up the products on the screen and so on.
Which one would you prefer? Adopt the one that comes across as accessible to you and your users.
2. Enhanced Personalization
Isn’t it a good feeling when you get personalized messages? Personalization is all about getting tailor-made push notifications and messages from the online stores.
When a user downloads your eCommerce mobile app on their phone, log in and access the products & services, it gets easier for you to send personalized Push Notifications to them. That’s not it! You will also be able to give discounts on products, categories based on their browsing behavior. As a part of the Conversion Rate Optimization techniques, your customers will feel delighted to receive the same and your conversion rate will surely go up.
3. Hassle-free Push Notifications
Just when we’re talking about reaching out to the customers, eCommerce mobile app has another benefit over mobile websites and that is of sending Push Notifications. The in-app marketing feature that allows the admin to stay in touch with the prospective customers 24/7 adds to the reason for choosing mobile apps over mobile sites. When your customers are logged in to your eCommerce mobile app, push notifications are the easy and effective way to increase your conversion rate. However, some websites have started to work on sending these notifications through web browsers as well, but all browsers don’t have this support.
4. Offline Access
One of the most fundamental differences between mobile apps and mobile website is that the former provides offline access to the users whereas; the latter does not.
When it comes to eCommerce mobile apps, they too definitely need internet access for a lot of work, but there are some application that even work in offline mode. On the other hand, a strong internet connection is mandatory for every mobile website. You cannot even depend on weak connections because they’ll take time to load and the user might just get irritated and call it to quit.
For example, some banking apps, news, retail chains and more have the facility to browse through even without an internet connection.
5. Making use of the device features
These days every smartphone comes with a set of features inbuilt into the device. For example, high-resolution camera, accelerometer and more. Another advantage that eCommerce mobile app has on the website is that you can code your app into utilizing the respective features. For example, the camera can scan the OR codes, Barcodes, PDFs and more whereas; the NFC features lets you make payments safely and more. With the new age fingerprint sensors, the devices and the user experience has become safe. Samsung Pay is one of the best examples here.
6. App store presence
One of the many reasons e-merchants are going from websites to apps is sole because they want to have their business presence in the app store. Whether it is Android apps or iOS apps, ranking there is what adds in better chances of being noticed by users while looking for something. Mobile websites do not show up in the app store and hence, they optimize their site to an app with the help of mobile app creator. Having an app gives your business an access to the millions of users who search and browse through iTunes and Google Play, giving them extended brand awareness and opportunities for downloads that can come from users outside their typical sphere of influence.
7. Enhanced SEO possibility for your website
Taking a look at the advantages that you get having a mobile app, the last one on the list would be better SEO possibilities. When Google will take into account the content, it will consider both in-app contents as well as the website content. Hence, with some alterations on both the types, you gain better chances of being in the good books of the search engines.
8. Designing Freedom
Mobile Apps have always been a more interactive and engaging platform for online shoppers than mobile websites. Mobile websites need to somewhere rely on the browsers even for the basic features. But, eCommerce mobile apps are completely free of such restrictions.
Moreover, mobile apps come with configurable designs and functionalities. So, you get full control over how your app will look and work on the user’s devices. The custom home screen of the apps can be crafted with various sliders, banners, categories, products etc. The rich color choices offered in the mobile app make them appealing for the users. There are various such automated modules available for PrestaShop, OpenCart, Magento, Magento 2, WooCommerce and Shopify which provides every design-related control into your hands.
9. Brand Presence
Your eCommerce mobile app has a larger reach and visibility scope than the websites. Voicing out your brand on the mobile apps would definitely strengthen your brand position in the market.
The best way is to showcase your own logo on the header of the eCommerce mobile app. It will enhance the branding strategies of your store along with the products.
10. Reduced Cost
This might be in your mind that is it worth to put your money in the mobile apps? But, trust me, spending a few bucks on the mobile app development would result in almost double conversions on your store.
Moreover, you need to go for the option of eCommerce mobile app development without any code. These are pocket-friendly ways and save you from all the involved technicalities and codings. All the necessary changes can be easily done from the admin panel.
Conclusion
There you have it. These ten reasons or advantages of investing in a mobile app this year should be your next step towards success. Invest in a eCommerce mobile apps because every business needs it for better results.
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