How to Turn Your E-Commerce Store Into An Outstanding Mobile Commerce App

Mobile use has sored around the world transforming the way consumers research goods, locate sellers and make purchases. According to the Statista report, the value of mobile commerce for businesses will continue to rise and will capture 50% of all e-commerce by 2021. Thus, if you want to leverage this trend and boost your e-commerce and physical store performance, it’s high time to have a closer acquaintance with mobile commerce app development.

Why You Need A Mobile Commerce App

Before converting a website to a mobile app , it is important to understand how this can help you do your business. While mobile applications might not work wonders for companies that sell high-ticket products with a long buying cycle, mobile app development is literally reshaping the world of retail . If you have a retail e-commerce store, a mobile commerce app will provide you with the following benefits:

Increased Sales

Users spend a tremendous amount of time on mobile and tend to convert faster when shopping with their mobile devices. Mobile apps contribute to sales even more, as they are faster and provide a better user experience. What’s more, mobile push notifications are much more personal and difficult to ignore than online ads and can have a powerful effect on sales volumes.

Customer Insight

Mobile apps offer great real-time demographic analytics. Unlike e-stores, they also have the potential to track in-store purchases and collect valuable GPS, contact list and whatnot information that has great value for marketing. For example, you can send a push notification informing a user of your nearest store when he is around it.

Loyalty

More and more companies include loyalty programs and referral marketing into their strategies and handling dozens of cards becomes really annoying for customers. Mobile apps are always handy and ready to breed the loyalty of your customers. StarBucks’ mobile app case is just one example of how successful mobile apps can be in this regard.

Converting a Web Store into an M-Commerce App

If you already have an e-commerce website, it is better to use it for mobile commerce application development rather than create a brand new app. Such a solution allows e-commerce companies to lower overall mobile app development costs. In addition, if the website and the app use a single database, inventory management becomes more consistent and fewer errors occur. Last but not least, the existing website can be used for app marketing, which now takes about 30% of mobile app budgets.

The key to successfully turning a web store into a mobile app is choosing a reliable mobile commerce development company that will take on the necessary technical steps:

• Choice of a platform
• Mobile app design
• API development and integration
• Testing
• Deployment

Choosing Essential Features

Mobile commerce development allows implementing a wide range of features that will make the functionality of your website and a dedicated mobile app differ. To be able to give a proper task to mobile commerce app developers, it is important to select the features you want your mobile app to have. Here are some essential features to consider:

• Authorization

Authorization helps users to personalize their buying experience and make shipment orders and transactions without providing additional details. Technically, the authorization may be carried out by direct interaction with the client-server API or using social logins.

• Settings

Settings are common for mobile apps as they help users choose the preferred look of the interface and set notification preferences. It contributes to a better experience with an app and, consequently, more sales.

• Push Notifications

Push notifications — Apple push notifications (APN) for iOS and Google cloud messaging (GCM) for Android — are a great advantage mobile apps give. Thus, it is better to implement this feature from the very beginning.

• Catalog with categories

It is important to develop a design that will effectively present the product picture and details on a mobile screen. In addition, an app needs a robust system where each category and product would have a unique ID.

• Payment methods

To allow instant purchases, your app should support a wide variety of payment methods including Apple Pay, Google Pay, Stripe, etc.. If you need to limit the number of payment options, consider the methods that are most common for your target market. For example, Western consumers prefer paying with PayPal, Visa, and Mastercard, while Asian buyers love to use a Cash on Delivery feature.

• Shipment tracking

Another feature m-commerce app users will appreciate is shipment tracking. The feature is to inform the buyers of key events associated with the delivery of a product, which will make them feel more relaxed and sure about their online purchase.

• Customer support

The use of an app should be intuitive and clear. Nonetheless, it is beneficial to provide users with an easy way to reach out for support if they still have any questions or concerns. In an app, this can be present as a chat or a call-back feature.

Final Thoughts

Creating an app for your e-commerce website is not as difficult as most business owners think. A secret to flawless creation of an app from an e-commerce website is selecting a proper provider of mobile commerce development services that goes beyond mere coding and devotes much attention to business logic, app design, and marketing.

Originally published at https://swagsoft.com.sg on December 6, 2019.