In the current COVID-19 pandemic almost every business has realized the value of a mobile application in their business. In fact, those who were operating their business have not that much affected in the sales as their counterparts. The high-speed 4G network and smartphones have enabled everyone to do the daily life tasks with just a few taps on the mobile such as booking a taxi, ordering groceries, paying the electricity bill, scheduling an appointment, etc. A successful e-commerce mobile application development will definitely boost the sales of your business, increase its brand value and will have more reach to the customers.
Now, the customer finds easiness as well as a sort of fun in purchasing online from anywhere, even on the go. This is the reason why mobile apps are getting more preference in comparison to their website counterparts. Also, E-commerce is turning to M-commerce (Mobile Commerce). On E-commerce, in 2019, there were sales of $2.3 trillion which is expected to reach $3.5 trillion in 2021. The smartphones or tablets account for nearly 70% of these sales.
In this article, we are going to discuss how e-commerce mobile applications will help your brand, what are their essential features, and a lot more.
How is E-commerce Mobile Application beneficial for your traditional business?
E-commerce
There are plenty of reasons why you should adopt an ecommerce mobile app development company for your business. Whether it is building brand reputation, customer loyalty, or an increase in sales, a mobile application has the potential to do all, you just need to hire a reputed marketplace mobile app development company.
Increase Customer Loyalty
Customer Loyalty
Apparently, it may seem that mobile application is just an alternative to the website, but it is a lot more. It is highly customized, well-designed, and optimized. It gives a better user experience to customers and increases the acquisition and retention of new customers. The customer finds themselves in an online store where they can easily find products and purchase them.
Better than traditional web application
A mobile application has many advantages over traditional e-commerce web applications. A few of them are:
Mobility: The customers have free access to the mobile application anywhere at any time.
Speed: While to access a website you need an Internet browser first, the apps are accessible directly. Their pages load faster than a website, and hence reel more customers. You should know that in e-commerce even a fraction of second counts. You would be surprised to know that the customer can leave your application if it takes more than 3 seconds to load.
Personalization: The customer behaviour, shopping pattern, searches etc. can be easily saved and managed in a mobile application to provide customers with a better-personalized experience.
Offline Access: Through mobile application development, you can also provide offline access to users. It can include content and some basic functionality for comparing products or checking prices.
Build Brand Reputation
A customer gets more attachment to the brand through a mobile application. The customers can share the links of favorite products and describe the customer experience on their social networks. You must integrate the trending and popular social channels on your app. These are powerful tools for building your brand’s reputation, advertising your service, and drawing the attention of potential clients.
Data Collection and Analytics
You can collect the data of user interaction through many different methods on the app. It includes their buying pattern, searching behavior, reviews, and feedback, product categories, performance, etc. You can analyze this data to provide a better experience to the customer and make business strategies in the future. This may help brands to implement new things or update their products as per customers’ demand, create customized content, develop marketing campaigns, and an advanced marketing strategy.
Increase brand visibility
When a customer installs your mobile application in his/her smartphone, your app is always visible on the app tray. Hence, when the customer goes through the apps tray, he will see your app and get reminded of your brand. Also, maximum customers tend to spend hours on a mobile application instead of websites. By providing a better user experience you can hook the customers on your app and make them loyal patrons.
Common features of an E-commerce Mobile App
E-commerce Mobile App
In an e-commerce mobile application, there are 3 entities involved. These are customers, sellers, and Admin. Every entity has its own features. Here are a few of them:
Customers
- Registration or Sign-Up, and log in
- Products Search
- Products Categories
- List of products
- Referral, Offers, Discounts, and Promo codes
- Customer Loyalty Programs
- Payments
- Shipment and Tracking
- Add To Cart
- Product Details
- Wallet
- Images, and Videos of Products
Sellers
- Login and Registration
- Active Subscription Plan
- Account Management
- Inventory Management
- Store Setup
- Dashboard
- Import Products or Catalogues
- Inventory Adjustment Automation
- Payment
- Reviews and Rating Management
- Reporting tools
- Real-time analytics
- Notifications and Alerts
- Order Returns Management
Admin Panel
- Login with the Credentials
- Dashboard
- Managing Customers
- Customer Verification for e.g. KYC
- Promotion, Rewards, Discounts
- Payment Management
- Referral and Invites Management
Some Important Features
User On-boarding
User On-boarding
Well don’t get baffled between user onboarding and Login and Registration, they meant the same. User onboarding should be very easy and include only the necessary details at the registration time such as Contact No., E-mail, Name, etc. You can also include social login Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, etc. for the Sign-Up.
Searching and Filters
Searching and Filters
If you are having a huge number of products in your store to offer, then you will definitely require a good search for your store. A good search should be quick, making a better shopping experience and less frustrating to the customers. The search functionality allows the user to find what they require without any fuss. Similarly, filters help to sort and make the search more customized.
Detailed Product Descriptions
Detailed Product Descriptions
The product description on e-commerce can make it big or even destroy it. Regardless of the image of the product, if the description of the product is not filled properly, you can lose the trust of your customers. However, manually entering the product description through your employees can be a very long & tedious process. For this, you can leverage AI. It will not just find and copy the details of the product but will also update the latest information about the product updates. AI content software understands just the right details which are to include to promote the products.
Images of Products
Images of Products
Product images are play the main role in the user impression. The details of products are not complete without showing its captivating images to the users. Some customers still don’t prefer to buy products online as they can’t see the products like in brick and mortar stores. Hence, it is highly important that you showcase only the relevant images of the product.
Wish-list
Wish-list
Many may forget this is important to include in the app while mobile application development. A wishlist lets the admin know what their customers want to buy which is not in stock. It also increases brand recall and loyalty among customers. Interestingly, shopping cart abandonment rates on mobile e-commerce apps are just 20%, compared to 68% on desktop and 97% on mobile websites.
Payment Integration
Payment Integration
Well, it is obvious that there should be payment functionality on an e-commerce app. But to provide a smooth user experience you need to implement the trending payment methods used by your target audience. So that the customer will not abandon the cart due to any hassling payment method. For this, you need to provide a wide range of payment options including all necessary credit and debit cards, along with the trending local payment methods.
Order Tracking
Order Tracking
After making an order, the customers just can’t wait to get delivered. However, an order tracking feature helps them in making patience. The user will get all the updates related to shipping and can track the order. It will also help the user to maintain their schedule for pickup during the delivery.
Membership Programs
Membership Programs
This is a new trend in service or products based on mobile e-commerce applications. With a membership feature, the customer will get access to the exclusive deals in advance or can get many other benefits such as free delivery. It also builds a reputation for your brand and makes a healthy relationship with the customer.
Read more: Why Headless E-commerce can be the next big thing?
Wrapping Up
In today’s time, E-commerce Marketplace Development for your business will definitely be going to expand it and increase sales. Initially, it may seem that it is costly but with the increase in business, you will be able to recover all the underlying costs of development. We at Amplework Software, the best ecommerce mobile app development services, are having expertise in developing custom e-commerce mobile apps which suit your requirements.
