Often while online shopping, we all end up praising a few applications whereas uninstalling some of them. There might be various factors behind the satisfaction but, next-level creativity to serve users better is one of the primes. Worldwide mobile shoppers prefer to choose that eCommerce mobile app only with whom they feel comfortable and reliable.
That’s where user engagement comes into the picture for a shopping app. Be it credits awarded for shopping or money cashback, the mobile apps have all such necessary tactics to improve user connectivity & brand reputation.
Further, most eCommerce stores have already acknowledged that user engagement via the Mobile App channel is much better when compared to their website. This might make you wonder about the ways to achieve it for your eCommerce Mobile App? Well, this article covers all such tips and tricks. Just give it a read and you’ll get to know all the secrets.
TIP: User On-Boarding & Welcoming
The majority of newbie mobile app users either come to know about the app via website or directly from app store. In both cases, they expect to have a friendly & un-complicated first impression of the app. Hence, to improve the user onboarding, you can have:
1. Social Logins/ Signups:
It makes easier for the users to register/sign-in to your shopping app. The cluttered login process might annoy customers. The most common and better approach is to offer various social login options like Facebook, Google, etc. Also, various modern apps come up with inbuilt Fingerprint & Phone No (OTP) login.
2. Quick Tutorials For New App:
A simple 3-5 step tutorial screens help to guide new users about the basic functionalities of the apps. Though everyone is aware of the basic shopping app working, yet the tutorials will do no harm. Instead, they will save precious time for users.
3. Welcome E-mails & Messages:
During signup in an eCommerce mobile app, you can set up an automated sending of welcome E-mail & SMS. This might sound like very common but have been proven to be much helpful in gaining users’ trust and reliability.
TIP: User-friendly Navigation:
The tab bar, navigation menu & other countless features in an app must be made to function in accordance with the dimensions & features of smartphones/tablets.
1. Sticky Menu:
In mobile devices, the toggle menu on the navigation bar should be a ‘sticky menu’ so that the user needn’t scroll all the way to the top in order to access the menu.
2. Product List & Grid View:
As per their preferences, mobile shoppers get to choose either a list view or grid view to browse products. Both of them should offer a more precise & detailed view of the products.
3. Browse Products Horizontally:
It’s a common style for shopping apps to have vertical swiping in order to browse products. Along with that, an additional feature can also be added offering left & right swipes. It further enhances the user experience & engagement especially for the millennials who are fond of quick & seamless browsing.
TIP: Personalization Of Apps:
As per various survey reports, millennials are frustrated with the irrelevant emails & notifications being shared with them. They, being a major percentage of e-shoppers, must be served with personalized newsletters & notifications.
1. Push Notifications:
Push notifications on the mobile devices are quite an efficient tool to drive sales for your store. The personalized notifications have proved to boost user retention & conversion rates by 3 times when compared to email campaigns & web notifications. Using your creative and design skills, leading users to a successful purchase is more facile.
2. Newsletter Subscriptions:
Out of all categories available on shopping websites/apps, users may want to opt-in for selective newsletters. For example, the female app audience on a clothing e-store may want to follow up with the newsletters of only the ‘Women Apparels’ section. Hence, to have better user engagement, such personalized opt-in newsletters popup forms must be configured on a Shopping App.
3. Multi-Lingual & Multi-Currency Support:
For personalization of the app & catering to international customers in a better way, multiple languages & currencies should be available in the apps. For Arabic, Persian & similar languages that follow right to the left pattern (RTL), should be made compatible as well.
TIP: Simpler Product Search:
1. Layered Navigation (Filter & Sort):
Easy navigation has always been a prime requirement for eCommerce apps. With filtering and sorting of products, it is just a matter of moments for users to find their desired product. This feature improves user-experience by narrowing down the time spent on successful purchases.
2. Wishlist:
Wishlist functionality aids customers with shortlisting the favorite products that they are willing to buy. Certainly, this saves the user time by displaying the bookmarked products on a single screen.
3. Social Sharing Of Products:
The users get to share eCommerce mobile app products on social media channels like Facebook, Google, etc. This way, the existing users can lure the potential audience available on various social networks.
TIP: Offers/ Discounts & Banners:
1. Flash Sale (Time Based):
Most shopping websites & apps use the strategy to create an urgency for online product purchases. This has been already proven quite helpful for online retail biggies. Offer timer-based countdown sale on your app & encourage customers to buy products as soon as possible. With the limitation, online shoppers tend to purchase more quickly.
2. Discount Vouchers & Coupons:
Discounts are everyone’s favorite and play a huge role in increasing sales. All such vouchers & coupons running on your website should work seamlessly in your eCommerce mobile app as well.
3. Gamified Email Subscription:
You would have observed a gamified ‘Spin & Win’ wheel-like interface on some eCommerce websites. The user who spins its digital wheel wins a discount mentioned in the pie. Some sections may even state ‘try your luck next time’. Whether the user gets a desirable discount or not, either way, he/she ends up submitting E-mail address. The outcome here is solely beneficial for remarketing purposes. The users also get an interactive interface to gain offers.
TIP: Feedback, Loyalty & Reward Points:
1. Feedback:
Often, we all receive in-app feedback popups that ask-
- ‘How would you rate us out of 5 stars?’
- ‘From a scale of 1 to 10, how likely will you recommend us to your friends?’
Such surveys help the e-business to be aware of their weak areas are opens the doors to improvisation and improvement. It also ensures to serve customers in a better way.
2. Customer Loyalty:
You can award frequent shoppers with loyalty cards that can be used as a discount coupon while next purchase. Improving customer loyalty in your eCommerce mobile app can be a direct boon for your sales.
3. Reward Points:
On each online purchase, an eCommerce mobile app rewards its customers with some points. Upon accumulating such points & reaching a limit of say 1000 points, customers receive major cashback & offers. This encourages customers to shop more from the app.
4. Referral Points:
You can provide a unique referral code to each of your app users. When the user encourages another newbie user for signup using his/her referral code, you can award the former one with relevant reward points.
TIP: Live Chat For Instant Support:
1. Social Chat Options:
Your mCommerce shopping app with inbuilt chat support will allow users to communicate in case of any issue. For instance, WhatsApp & Zopim (Zendesk) chat in the mobile app is more likely for customers to get the required assistance.
2. ChatBots:
Many applications also have a chatbot integrated with them. It further offers more opportunities to even set automated messages for certain types of pre-defined user queries.
TIP: Checkout & Payments:
1. Favorable Payment & Shipping:
We all prefer our favorite payment method when it comes to making online transactions. That too in online shopping, the users tend to leave products in the cart without successful purchases in case of unavailable payment options. The store admin should keep in mind to add all necessary shipping & payment methods on the eCommerce shopping app. This can be a prime measure to reduce the rate of cart abandonment.
2. Handy Checkout Process:
Ask only the necessary details on the checkout screen. The one-page checkout in eCommerce mobile apps requires only essential order related entries before leading to the payment screen. This way, the user even gets to review the complete order before the final purchase. Having a single screen checkout aids the users from backing out of lengthy form fillings. It engages better with the users & helps in achieving high conversion rates.
3. Order Tracking:
The order tracking feature in mobile apps must allow the customers to be aware of the whereabouts of the placed orders. The mobile shoppers can keep an eye on the delivery of the previous purchase items. Keeping a potent tracking option will also motivate users to prefer your app again & make more purchases to increase revenue.
Summing Up:
For eCommerce Shopping Apps, these are some of the trendy ways to engage more users in an organic way. It not only improves the sales but also builds a good brand reputation. These days, most of the shopping apps are built using a readymade tool like eCommerce Mobile App Builder. It handles the complexities and burden of e-store owners for the creation and management of shopping applications. Having listed all the prominent mobile app user engagement tips, I hope you find this article helpful.
Check out Mobile App Builder for various eCommerce platforms:
