Popularity of mobile platforms is thriving, driven by more business spending, progressive layouts and increasing customer preferences for online purchases, big and small, via smarter apps. Irrespective of their size, organisations are spending big money on optimizing mobile apps experiences.

The goals vary, from improving brand loyalty to repositioning themselves in the market or just ensuring a constant stream of interaction with buyers.

Though mobile apps will give you a good stretch in terms of grabbing attention and drive more clicks towards your e-com store, you need to do something extra to triumph over competitors in this cut-throat environment where buying behavior is increasingly becoming technology-driven.

A more robust mobile app that does all the basics right, and then some. In this blog we dig deeper into the world of e-commerce app development fundamentals, trends and challenges.

The First Rule for E-com Mobile App Success: Personalize User Experience

How does a mobile app outplay its competition?

By making users more addicted to it. This is easier to achieve if your mobile app can make app-based interactions more personalised.

An eCommerce mobile app should maximise participation, i.e. interact more with users, making the app seem more humane, more intuitive, more likely to understand buying preferences.

For example, you can provide chatting and texting options by integrating your app with social media sites.

Mobile analytics tools can be integrated into your app, allowing you to learn more about the buying habits of customers. The data collected will allow you to create more personalized, more relevant promotional campaigns that will eventually impact sales and promotional spending.

Personalisation also paves the road to increased repeat traffic, more customer-to-customer references and higher sales conversions.

No Matter How Awesome your eStore is, you Need More Customer Loyalty

Smarter apps let you control communication with targeted customers and disparate but potentially significant buyers. Your eCommerce mobile app can initiate and sustain interactions with customers even when they are on the move and don’t necessarily have a buy intent.

This creates a greater degree of brand familiarity, which drives more brand acceptance and recall. If you want to send your customers direct messages about the latest offers, apps can push notifications in to increase clicks without irritating your users.

You can build customer loyalty using mobile apps as it doesn’t compete with online searches, which makes your store the immediate go-to platform when a purchase is in mind. Once users have downloaded the app, you can create categorised campaigns to ensure that that complete customer demographic is covered.

Create different app-enabled ads and notifications for one-time shoppers, loyal customers, better socially networked buyers, and engage folks that have traditionally been outside your definition of ‘potential buyers’.

Apps that Cannot Deliver Better Conversion Rate are Not Doing their Job!

An online game is rather simple – more click-through numbers, rising weekly volumes of first-time store browsers & increasing discount promos – is what guarantees success! Better conversion rate in eCommerce apps play a vital role to make sure that your app development and deployment investments are taken care of.

You can integrate features like social media recommendations or product videos to increase conversion rates.

Your site content should be readily accessible via the app or take smartphone users to landing pages that have been moderated to create the maximum clicks.

While optimizing your site for more organic searches is good, an effective e-Com app can create more online traction with less investment. Customer ratings and product recommendations must be integrated to impress visitors and gain credibility.

Boost your In-Store Buying Experience

You can create better in-store shopping experiences for your customers with an eCommerce mobile app that has been optimized with the latest customer engagement trends.

If you run a physical store alongside your eCommerce platform, customers who visit your brick and mortar store can enjoy shopping if they have an app that shows them exactly where the goods are located inside the store. Such folks can also be offered a special discount, i.e. for walk-in purchases completed via the app.

When integrated with Google Maps, a smart eCom app can help first-time shoppers get easy directions to your store(s). Geographical tagging ensures that notifications are pushed across regional categorisation of customers, including those who are located close to your retail space but haven’t found a reason to visit your store yet. For each walk-in fuelled by the app, you have actually recovered a significant part of your app-related spending.

Online purchase experiences can be enriched by offering discounts for referring a friend at the time of exiting the app (after processing a payment). Basic app functionalities like GPS allow retailers to offer location-based discounts and offers. This is a win-win situation where you gain a more relevant database that can be later integrated with your promotional activities.

Make Retail Apps More Addictive

Mobile app development for eCommerce stores is challenging since the objective is to make visitors fall in love with the online store and then install the app. Convenience and flexibility are critical words for app development as modern smartphone users will often only window-shop or just recommend product links rather than actually buy something.

Your retail app should not have too many bells and whistles. Keep it as unobtrusive as possible with a neat definite theme. If you are in the middle of strategising mobile apps for eCommerce, you need to create space for excellent customer service.

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Many brands also offer Live Chat options to their audience that helps to enhance real-time customer interactions. More queries resolved instantly boosts on-the-spot sales rather than waiting for customers to revisit the app.

You can also attempt packaging different type of landmark discounts to maintain customer engagement. This can be in the form of freebies or additional price reduction for: sign-up & app download, first purchase, refer a friend, completing first 5 purchases, weekly spending, liking you Facebook page, etc.

You can add specialized features from reminding you about the in-cart items to sending subtle reminders about upcoming anniversaries with gift suggestions.

An app should always have more high quality images than data-seeking pop-ups. Animations can make every app journey more fun – but don’t overdo it. Exclusive functionalities like automated route for sharing a ‘Liked’ or ‘Wish-list’ product on Facebook can boost overall app recall value.

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