There was a time when e-commerce platforms were based on websites to sell their products. Those days are past when an ecommerce business required website banners, physical banners, email marketing or facebook marketing in order to attract customers.
Consumers should be able to purchase products and services from anywhere and everywhere. And this is where an e-commerce platform requires a mobile app. Mobile apps build the connection more stronger between business and consumers.
In order to increase online sales, mobile apps play a very important role because mobile apps provide consumers freedom of purchasing services as well as mobile apps are better at recognizing their customers.
According to the prediction of emarketer, it’s estimated that total spending on the global retail ecommerce platform will exceed $7 trillion by 2025, despite a slowdown in economic growth.
From the discussion above you may understand the importance of a mobile app for e-commerce so without any delay let’s see what benefits come from mobile apps for e-commerce platforms, with a detailed discussion.
Do You Need A Mobile Apps For e-commerce?
You may have already understood what e-commerce is and how it works to keep a business in competition.
Now you may think, do you really need a mobile apps for your e-commerce when you already have a website for your business? The simple answer is yes, if you want to keep your e-commerce business competitive you surely need a mobile app.
The tech industry is growing within no time and a lot of e-commerce retailers have taken steps to develop their own custom app for their e-commerce business and websites. As a prediction, a person spends 2-3 hours of their day by using various apps on their mobile phone and these apps include retail apps too.
As a result, ecommerce retail apps are the top fourth most repeatedly used mobile app. It’s a matter of fact that every person on the earth now owns a mobile phone and 95% of these users use their mobile phone for various research and to make purchases from e-commerce stores.
As of 2022, there have been over 242 billion mobile apps downloaded worldwide and this number is increasing day by day. This shows how demanding a mobile app can be for a mobile phone user.
It’s not just that the use of mobile apps is increasing day by day but the revenue coming from these apps are increasing as well too. As per calculation, worldwide revenue of mobile apps has reached 129 million USD by 2022.
With a mobile app for your e-commerce, you will be able to increase your brand reputation and sell as well as you can provide consumers a pleasant user experience.
Why Mobile App Is Important For E-commerce?
In 2023, you must need a mobile app for the fluidity of your e-commerce business and now we will be discussing some of the reasons why you need a mobile app for e-commerce.
Trend Of Mobile Commerce
A big part of the sales from e-commerce has been comprehensively taken by mobile commerce. If you analyze the facts about your sales metrics and see what devices your consumers are using to purchase products or services, you will see a big part of those sales are coming from a mobile app.
As a result, 60 to 70 percent of worldwide e-commerce sales come from mobile devices and the control of mobile apps in e-commerce will come to pass within no time.
In 2023, people are already used to shopping with a mobile device because it is more suitable compared to waiting for using a computer.
Also, mobile commerce is letting consumers do shopping from literally anywhere. Consumers can purchase products online while traveling somewhere by train, having lunch on their lunch break or when they are waiting for someone in a coffee bar.
E-commerce sales from mobile devices are trending upward and to keep your e-commerce site in the competition in this trend, you need mobile app development. Because, worldwide sales of e-commerce is dominated by mobile sales and shopping apps are growing faster by time compared to any other app in the market.
Customer Preferences For Mobile App
Some of you may be satisfied to know that your ecommerce mobile site is reaching toward mobile phone and tablet users, but you don’t know that you are barely scratching the surface.
It doesn’t matter if you have an app for your e-commerce or not, but it is essential to have a mobile friendly website for your business. As a result, 87% of people think that a mobile website should look better compared to its desktop version.
Also, 88% of people are not interested in going back to a mobile site after having bad user experience, 48% of people want a mobile site to load within 3 seconds or less than that.
So all over, a user friendly mobile site is an important step for generating sales from mobile users. But there are many more things.
78% consumers who are likely to use a mobile app for their ecommerce shopping instead of a mobile website. You read it right, 78%.
Mobile apps offer a better experience for shopping and comfort and speed are the two big reasons behind this. No matter how good a mobile site is, it’s never enough to compete with a mobile app because functions of mobile apps are more optimized compared to a website.
Increase Competitive Benefits
In the discussion above, we have already discussed how much consumers are interested in shopping from a mobile app instead of shopping from a website. You might still get sales from your mobile site but it won’t last forever if you think it will.
If you can be an early mover and develop your own app, it will bring several competitive benefits for you which are helpful enough to keep you in a higher position in the market.
Suppose, a consumer is confused between your site and your competitors site, your app will give them a reason to buy products or services from you.
Now you might think that you don’t have to rush to develop an app because your competitors in the market don’t have an app too so you are just thinking of making a better website for now. Well, this might be a very wrong decision because, if you want to keep yourself in the competition of the market then you have to be one step ahead of your competitors.
Because you never know when they come up with an app while you keep building a better website.
Elevate Marketing Communication
When it’s about sales, a mobile app for your e-commerce will never be disappointing. You will be able to generate more profits from your consumers by improving marketing campaigns in your mobile app.
In order to increase sales from your mobile website and to reach your consumers you have to spend dollars on email marketing and social media campaigns for your website. But with a mobile app you can easily reach your consumers and communicate with them by ‘push notification’.
As a result, 20% of users open an email when 60% of users open a push notification from a mobile app. And when they open the message, only 3% of people are likely to have an interaction with the email when 42% of people with push notification.
With push notifications, customers will straight go to the app just by one tap which is easy and user friendly compared to social media marketing or email communication for websites.
Offer Better Customer Service
If people get better customer service, they don’t hesitate to spend more money. It’s said by almost 75% of e-commerce consumers that they are encouraged to spend more time and money shopping if they experience good customer service.
So, this is something you should keep in your mind while designing an e-commerce app for your business.
You have to come up with various facilities such as making it easy for your consumers to find your contact information instead of pushing them to find it from any other website. You should also provide a live chat option for your consumers so that they can directly message you for any kind of help or information.
From purchasing a product to getting it delivered, allow consumers to keep a track of their purchase. Also, provide a return option for your consumers.
What Are B2B Vs B2C Mobile Apps?
B2B Applications
B2B applications, also known as business to business applications are developed to be aimed at other businesses. B2B apps are developed to simplify the work process or complexity of other businesses, let other companies or staff of other companies fulfill their industrial needs. It helps one business platform to connect with other businesses, employees or stakeholders too.
Advantages: The main reason companies developed B2B apps is it follows a decent structure and provides more adaptability. These apps are designed for solving any specific problems and that makes these apps pretty straight forward.
Goals of these apps are pretty simple which help app developers to focus on the primary object of their goals and makes their job easier. B2B apps are helpful enough to reduce customer service costs too.
Disadvantage: B2B apps are designed to simplify any complex situation and which is why a lot of work is required for these types of apps. It requires more research and more resources to develop a B2B app.
And the process above may directly increase the price of these apps. Compared to the price of traditional apps, it can be more expensive.
Despite the high price, your app will be hard to sell if you don’t follow any unique marketing technique.
B2C Applications
B2C applications, also known as business to consumer applications are targeted toward consumers. These are the common apps and you will find a variety of B2C apps in the app store. These apps are developed to make life easier for consumers by letting them complete their daily living tasks with minimum effort.
Advantage: B2C mobile apps have a wide range of consumers and as a result B2C app developers are mostly focused on improving user interface for the consumers. B2C apps help businesses to send push notifications, display products and provide offers and discounts to their consumers so that users stay interested.
Business to consumer provides consumers regular customer support. This helps to build a strong bond between business and consumers and makes the business more profitable.
Disadvantage: The biggest disadvantage of a B2C app is competition. There are more than six million B2C apps currently available on app stores and new apps are being added daily. Your B2C app may get lost within no time in the competition of other apps.
It might even die after creating a big hype between consumers. You might get a lot of consumers but they will instantly abandon your app whenever the next similar app or better app hits the market.
Also, users are interested in using a mobile app that comes with a good rating and review and let me tell you one thing, having a good rating and review is a tough game for a mobile app because most of the time customers are not satisfied with whatever services you provide them.
Final Words
We all know that success is not easy for any e-commerce business. It requires many things to succeed and our suggestion is to make use of every opportunity you have to succeed in your e-commerce business.
There was a time when mobile apps used to be an option for e-commerce but now the option has become a necessity for every e-commerce business. In order to properly succeed in your ecommerce business, developing an app won’t bring any harm, instead it will bring several benefits for your business.
