It is now apparent that the world is going mobile and no other industry than retail is taking the maximum advantage of this continuous advancement. Research says that an average US consumer is spending about 3hrs and 50mins on mobile devices in 2020. Furthermore, we are likely to witness that 85-90% of the time on mobile is spent on exploring apps.
From the same source, it has been reported that retail m-commerce sales will reach $338.02B in 2020, which was nearly $207B in 2018. Online retail businesses also have a higher customer retention rate as compared to all other industries. Thus, we can presume that a mobile app offers enormous benefits to a retail business.
Now, let’s try to understand how mobile apps have revolutionized the retail industry, along with its impact on your business.
The mobile apps have transformed the way retailers sell their goods and run their businesses. They have eliminated the need for billboards and printed materials to advertise special offers and discounts. Additionally, applications have significantly impacted the buying habits of the customers. They can now compare prices, save items, track and receive them to their doorstep with just a few taps on smartphones.
Today, mobile commerce is maturing rapidly as apps are gaining mainstream adoption in the retail industry. If you want to increase your customer engagement as well as revenue, collaborating with iOS/Android app developers to create a future-proof app is a good idea.
Key Benefits of a Mobile Application to your Retail Business
Improve Online Shopping Experience
Smartphones have been progressively relied on for shopping. A lot of consumers utilize mobile apps for discovering new products, exploring product reviews, saving items in a wishlist, and more. Sarcastically, you can call it online window shopping.
There are ample ways you can improve customers’ shopping experience and encourage them to buy products through your mobile app. Some of them are:
- Offering multiple filters to narrow the product’s search
- Giving loyalty rewards as a token appreciation
- Allowing users to track the real-time status of orders
- Providing re-order feature to save their time
Enhance Business Recognition
Brand awareness is an essential factor for your business as it can influence the purchase decision of your customers. Since customers spend most of their time using mobile phones, a mobile app will enable you to attract their attention in a way that no other traditional marketing tool can do.
Also, the continuous in-app advertisement will boost your business visibility and bring your brand to customers’ minds whenever they are searching for a product that your company deals in. Ultimately, the increased brand visibility will improve the overall sales as well as the revenue of your business.
24*7 Availability and Automation
A mobile app allows you to operate your retail business day in, day out. Besides, you can fully automate your business so that you don’t have to oversee all the in-hand transactions taking place on your retail mobile app. Automation also allows you to offer enhanced services to your customers using technologies like chatbots, virtual assistants. Thus, you can increase your new as well as repeat sales.
App features that can help you to step in the online retail market
Swift Responses and Registration Process
This is a fast-paced world. Customers need quick responses from the app they use, or they will switch to another app instantly. Unresponsive apps or apps with complicated and time-consuming registration process are entirely a turn off for the users. So, create an app that loads quickly and offer seamless registration via Google or a social media account.
However, if you need more users’ information, make sure to trim down insignificant details to keep hold of their attention in your app.
Multiple Payment and Currency Support
The primary concept of a mobile app is to localize your online business, which, in turn, can help you reach a broad user base. An application with multiple payments and currency support can localize your retail business easily.
Besides, every user looks for a secure and easy payment method. With various payment gateways like Paytm, PayPal, Debit/Credit card, Stripe, etc., you can boost their confidence to proceed with streamlined transactions. It also eliminates the issue of late payments and enables you to monitor all the transactions hassle-free.
Customer Loyalty Programs
To boost your customer’s loyalty, implementing a loyalty program into your retail app is the best idea. You can integrate your mobile app with a loyalty program platform to gather valuable data about your customers and give them special discounts or coupons based on their purchase history.
Using an application, you can also send points for social media likes or coupons, birthday coupons, and many other actions. Such an approach will considerably increase your customer retention as well as sales.
Enabling New Age Push Notifications
Using a retail app, you can send push notifications for communicating information, exclusive offers, and discount on users’ mobile phones. The more they stay updated, the more value they will feel. Thus, you will not only attract their attention to your products but also empower customer engagement.
Additionally, you can send real-time alerts to inform customers about every checkpoint of the order, including received, picked up, dispatched, delivered, etc.
The other value-added features of a retail app are in-app GPS, Beacon technology, mobile point of sale (POS), and QR-code scanner.
Key Takeaways
Considering all the above factors, you can easily take your retail business to a new level. Ordering products using an application is more prevalent than ever. A quality retail application will help you to provide a personalized online experience to your customers and increase your revenue exponentially. So, if you want to customer-friendly app for your retail business, we suggest you invest in iOS/Android app development services.
