Building a mobile app for your WooCommerce store: Learn the benefits
Mobile apps are no longer a tool that only big brands could think of building. Retailers of the modern world are far-sighted and believe in investing in new technologies that will benefit them in the future.
A clear indication by myriad surveys has shown how people are inclined towards buying from mobile apps. Consequently, almost every business is investing in it.
Suggestion read: Top 75 mobile app statistics — Market size & usage
The industry that has been affected the most in the category of apps is e-commerce. Whether big or small, it is almost mandatory for e-commerce businesses to offer mobile apps to customers.
Businesses that are small-sized and have a website are going with a reliable mobile app builder for WooCommerce. This medium has been very helpful in creating native mobile apps in a limited budget and time, ideal for small and mid-scale businesses.
It is true that the demand for apps was instigated by bigger brands. The customers loved the idea so much that their online shopping behavior changed drastically. The ideology was simple. Customers love shopping in perfectly convenient places/platforms. Mobile apps were just that.
Let’s look at the reason that changed the outlook of both the customers and the retailers:
Because customers love it
It is a little hard to believe but almost 70 percent of the digital traffic is driven by mobile devices. Of all the time people spend on smartphones, only 10 percent of their time goes into browsing the internet.
This data clearly identifies the reason why retailers are no longer hesitant in building mobile apps. They may find you on the internet, but if your WooCommerce native app offers a smooth shopping experience, they are definitely staying with you for a long time.
You are saving their time and giving the ease of shopping effortlessly. We say effortless because apps are much faster than websites, even in low network areas.
All you have to do is make your products or services as accessible as possible. Start with letting them use it as a guest. You can also allow sign in through social media accounts.
Suggestion read: 4 Advantages of Mobile Apps over WooCommerce Websites
Because retaining customers is easier
In the last section, we discussed how customers already prefer shopping on apps more than websites. This means retaining existing customers doesn’t really have to be a stressful process, once they are on your app.
If you see the graph below, you will notice that returning customers to mobile apps are always more than 30% which is much higher than a website.
There are a few but very effective ways that can be incorporated in a marketing strategy for every business that owns a mobile app.
Push notifications, for instance, are a perfect example of personalized marketing tactics. The feature comes in-built with apps and helps in promoting sales, new collections and more.
Apps that also feature geolocations, can run promotions on the basis of locations of customers. This way, they can filter their target audience and aggressively work towards achieving their goals.
You are halfway through when your customers download your shopping app. Convincing them to believe in your brand and products will be easier as compared to visitors on websites.
Your mere presence on their personal phones will make all the difference. There will be more chances for a customer who has downloaded your app to invest in your products than the ones who only visit your website. Like they say “ out of sight is out of mind”.
Suggestion read: Building Customer Loyalty with Apps for WooCommerce: Best Practices
Because shopping journey matters
We know that customers are moving towards mobile apps because of stress-free shopping experience. Enhancing the shopping journey of a user is the chief reason for curating a WooCommerce m-store for your business.
Native mobile apps are undoubtedly faster because they utilize a device’s resources completely to improvise themselves. The entire process of shopping, browsing, reviewing the products and making the payment can be made absolutely effortless through apps, provided they are built on a native platform.
This automatically means that apps have a better user interface than responsive websites could ever give, helping you retain customers and increase their shopping frequency.
Imagine the pain for customers to go back to a website with an empty cart they created after spending hours browsing on your website. With mobile apps, the product in their cart can stay for as long as they want.
Smaller businesses are using online app creator to build a mobile app for their business. This can simply be processed by converting the website into a full-blown mobile app. Like we said, it's affordable and takes a few days to get the app made and published on app stores.
Because capturing customer data is simpler
Besides helping retain existing customers, apps are a great platform to engage new ones. The process of capturing customer database and leveraging it can be made easier with mobile apps.
You can collect the information of customers through their email ids, phone number and social media accounts upon log-in.
Another way of capturing customer data is by using account information of customers whenever they login through their Facebook. This way, you will be able to engage with them and people on their friend list.
Native apps allow users to sign-up on a mobile app through their google account. The information that you can get through their Gmail accounts can be put to use to send them personalized offers on birthday and anniversary.
Suggestion read: How Native Apps Help Businesses Capture Relevant Customer Data
Because ultimately sales matter
Websites are certainly a great way to mark your presence in the online market. Getting attention from customers and popularizing your products and services is better through mobile apps. However, with mobile apps, converting sales from a potential customer is higher.
Let’s say a customer visited your website and is almost convinced to buy products from your website but fails to eventually complete the transaction. Now, there are chances that this customer may never find you again on the internet. However, if you had a mobile app, he/she could easily buy from your app at any time.
Customers who land on your website and eventually download your app can easily be converted into loyal ones. All you have to do is offer them a unified shopping experience that is seamless.
Wrapping up
With more than 70 percent of the population hooked to smartphones for most of their days, it will be unfair for any business to not be able to build a mobile app.
AppMySite is an excellent platform for small businesses to build their own shopping app through the mobile app builder for WooCommerce. Get a full-fledged native app for your retail business in an extremely affordable budget and shorter time duration.
