You can Save Money with Native B2B Mobile Apps
Mobile apps harvest a lot of attention in the world of B2B. Depending on your business goals, this decision can make or break the success of your strategy.
When you decide to start off with B2B mobile application, you should make a choice based on what you want YOUR app to do.
When building B2B app, you can choose between native (iOS, Android), hybrid (Xamarin, Flutter etc.) or web apps depending on your business needs, app requirements, developer skills and timeline.
Is it a high time for your business to look at introducing B2B mobile apps?
I’ll guide you through reasons why native apps offer considerable advantages over mobile websites or hybrid apps.
Why would you need B2B mobile app?
As customers got used to make B2B purchases online and to shop via their mobile devices, having a strong mobile commerce app — the one that lets the brand to build a direct communication to their buyers — will be a key differentiator for your business success.
There are few reasons why native mobile commerce apps are particularly tailored for B2B buyers:
1. Performance really matters.
When a B2B customer places an order on a mobile device, it HAS to work. It is highly important that user experience is flawless, with quick page loads and precise order confirmations. If there are interruptions in the connectivity, you cannot assure a positive experience or an accurately placed order. This can be the key difference between getting or losing a customer.
Investing in a native mobile eCommerce app is the right choice if you want to provide an exceptional mobile commerce experience.
Mobile users report that engaging with a mobile browser gives more challenges, like having to pinch and zoom screens and more, plus mobile sites proved slower than apps.
2. Buyers are often without the Internet access.
Mobile commerce needs to be convenient, allowing the consumer to place orders anytime, anywhere and from any device.
The ability to search for purchase and enter orders, even OFFLINE, is another crucial reason why mobile users prefer B2B mobile apps over mobile optimized sites.
As mobile devices are made to be used on the go, frequently happens that a connectivity is lost while traveling — being able to continue working, even offline, is an important advantage of B2B mobile apps over an optimized site.
A native mobile commerce app can utilize the mobile device’s camera as a barcode scanner, letting your buyer to quickly place an order whenever the need arises.
3. Increase Brand Awareness
For a business to survive in today’s competitive corporate world, the visibility and recognition is a MUST.
A well-developed mobile app can boost a company’s visibility as well as help create the brand awareness.
Mobile apps should supply features attractive to its target audience and all elements of branding the company already uses through different channels such as their website and social network accounts.
4. Better personalization.
Personalization is another essential element for B2B mobile apps — it automatically signs in users at the tap of the button, providing instant access to their personalized site unlike websites.
For business users that have multiple accounts on multiple sites, the ability to quickly and easily log in, search for products, review past history and complete their transaction is a great benefit.
The cost of B2B mobile app can range from $25,000 to $200,000 and it depends on the extent of the services you wish to provide to your customers. B2B are often integrated with the business systems such as ordering database, so the cost of development and the launch of a mobile app is highly dependent on your industry.
Why Native Apps?
Native mobile apps are the most common types of app.
They are developed for specific platforms and written in languages the platform supports, for example, Swift and Objective-C for iOS apps and Java for native Android apps.
Native apps are also developed using the specific Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for the given operating systems. Both Apple and Google supply an app developers with their own development tools, interface elements, and SDK.
A B2B native mobile app is essentially a total renovation of user experience for users’ needs. It avoids elements that don’t work well on the small screen such as pulldowns, and chooses large buttons that are easy to see on the small screen, along with a simple, consistent navigation.
Benefits
- Main benefits of native apps are that they are very fast and responsive since built for a specific platform thus they have the best performance.
- Native apps are more interactive, intuitive and run much smoother considering user input and output.
- Internet connection is not necessary for native apps.
- They have better user experience and the flow is more natural as there are specific UI standards for each platform.
- Native apps are delivered in app stores and give developers direct access to all native frameworks which otherwise may not be available.
- Native apps are designed for the best mobile experience and bring a different approach when dealing with content — discarding visual clutter and displaying content in the most intuitive way possible for the mobile users, even offline.
- Native apps outrun other apps because they are built in accordance with both technical and user experience guidelines — they can also quickly access the inbuilt capabilities of the user’s device (e.g. contacts, GPS, camera, etc.).
- Although the initial expenses may be higher with a native app, your end result will be saving considerable time and money in the long run. Offering a great user experience, better performance, and leveraging the device features, enable you to provide your users with more personalized experience.
- The combination of the native mobile app benefits will eventually increase your customers’ loyalty, resulting in a higher conversion rates.
- There aren’t such evident disadvantages with native apps except that you need experienced developers and that they are more expensive.
All things considered…
The decision to build either a native, web, or hybrid mobile app should depend on your business objectives. It’s important to work with an excellent app development company that specializes in platform’s specific design and development.
Since your competitors are likely figuring out ways to provide value to their customers through mobile apps, it’s high time for you to figure out your own mobile strategy.
We would usually recommend native app development as it’s the best to stay with native and do not sacrifice the design elements that are unique to each platform.
