In the age of mobile commerce, there are more users shopping on their mobiles than on desktop. Having a mobile version of your site is useful, but having an app takes it to the next level. The reason? This improves the user experience, boosts conversion rates and shows the customers that you value their service. Let’s take a look at some of the reasons that a mobile app is worth it.
Improved Personalization
Personalization is a necessary part of any eCommerce experience, and expected by the majority of customers to your store. It creates tailored experiences for shoppers, offering them products they may be interested in, and giving them their own unique experience.
Mobile apps present the possibility for improved personalization, as certain details will have been entered in order to create the app. Then recent purchases, location, clicks and views can all be stored in order to present the shopper with more relevant information and recommendations moving forward.
Notifications Opportunities
When outreaching for marketing purposes, email and SMS can be very useful. However, there is a chance that people won’t open these messages, and if they do they may not click through. Open and click rates can be risky and unpredictable.
Mobile app notifications solve this problem completely. There are two types of notifications:
- Push notifications: These send a notification to the phone, regardless of if the app is open or not
- In-app notifications: These display notifications once the app has been opened
These create opportunities to reach customers in a far less intrusive way. It means that shoppers can decide how much they engage. However, you remain on their minds.
Extra Features
Having a mobile app means you are not limited; you can be creative. You can decide what features you want to add, what you want your app to bring. For example, you could use Augmented Reality within images. You could link it to social media, you could even create games or quizzes within the app.
Mobile divide features are all at your fingertips. Contact lists, GPS, phone calls, camera- they are all available to be made the most of. If you create an engaging, interactive and memorable app experience it will increase brand image. People will want to keep returning for the overall experience, and this will increase conversions.
Working Offline
This is a huge difference between a mobile website and app: apps can still work offline. Without being connected to the internet, offline mode means that apps can still offer functionality. Even if it’s limited functions, shoppers can still have accessibility to your business that otherwise they would not have.
Keep Customers Engaged Longer
A study proves that shoppers spend much more time on mobile apps than mobile websites. Regardless of the types of apps this study might take into account, there is truth in this. Because of the optimization potential for mobile apps, the overall experience will be a lot more enjoyable than the experience offered on the mobile website.
Especially with the potential for your own creativity and design, you can make sure that customers enjoy being on your app. If you offer certain discounts and promotions for app users, this can also increase the likelihood of them investing more time there.
Speed Benefit
Mobile websites can take a long time to load, and a slow website is terrible for business. Many customers will simply bounce if they are not able to engage with the website straight away. Especially if they are low intent, or browsing out of interest- the website speed is very important.
Mobile apps store their data locally on mobile devices, as opposed to web servers. This means that the data retrieval on mobile apps happens almost instantly. Whereas depending on internet connection, mobile websites can take a long time.
Mobile websites use javascript to perform functions, but mobile apps function almost five times faster than a javascript code. In the age of instant gratification, this is perfect. Users can complete actions far quicker on the front end of the apps- creating an optimized user experience.
Conclusion
Developing both a mobile app and a mobile website is the ideal situation. But if you have the potential to invest heavily in a mobile app, as we can see from this post, the returns are worth it. Mobile apps can help you increase conversion rates, demonstrate your brand identity and create lifetime customers.
Final Note
One final thing to remember, as is true with all eCommerce functions: remember to test. Running A/B tests is important in order to make sure your user experience stays optimized for users. The more you test, the more you know. If you want to know how often you should test; read this post on the exact topic. A/B testing allows you to experiment with features, app flows and other user experience opportunities.