When it comes to business, the only thing that remains constant is change. Businesses must understand their customers’ needs and be innovative in order to withstand in the market. Every business has its own way of doing things that may have worked for years, but there is no surety that these methods will work for you in the long run. This is because, in this ever-changing world, customers demand changes with time.
It’s a good thing to own an offline retail business. However, owning both an offline and an online retail business is much better.
The ongoing pandemic has already caused irreparable harm to the entire traditional businesses all over the world. Even after this is all over, it’s highly unlikely that the offline business will remain the same.
As we all know, in this age of digitalization, buying behavior of customers are rapidly changing, necessitating the need for businesses to go online in order to reach more customers and increase their market visibility. Customers’ interest in online shopping has been increasing at an alarming rate. And the COVID-19 pandemic acted as a catalyst for this new shopping trend.
Your customers, even the most loyal ones, have no other choice rather than adopting to eCommerce. Even if they wanted to, they can’t reach you in most cases. So Your customers quickly became accustomed to this new way of shopping. They begin to fall for it, and there is no turning back.
Customers who were once yours have become someone else’s. This occurred as a result of your failure to act at the right time. The best time to realize it’s time for a change is before it’s too late. It will be too late to react if you wait for your customers to inform you. You would have probably lost them.
Importance of E-commerce for Retailers
Trends in the ecommerce industry play a critical role in determining the fate of the entire retail industry. Ecommerce has a significant impact on the retail industry, influencing it to provide an equally engaging shopping experience.
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Enhanced Customer Engagement
Personalisation allows ecommerce companies to have a significant influence on customer’s shopping journey. Customized pop-ups, messages, emails, and so on aid in gathering customer reviews or feedback. This, in turn, helps ecommerce stores in enhancing the customer engagement.
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Improved Shopping Experience
AI and chatbots are a boon to the retail industry, allowing it to better understand customer conversations and provide a better shopping experience.
Retail stores are being influenced to use AI and analyze insights on customer behavior in order to streamline their product portfolio and deliver a much better retail experience. This results in a more pleasant shopping experience for the customer.
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Reduced Sales Journey
Chatbots are increasingly being used by ecommerce websites to better assist customers. Chatbots assist customers in shortening their sales journey by making product searches simple and allowing them to buy products quickly.
This will not only improve customer service, but it will also shorten a customer’s sales journey and increase sales volume.
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Improved Shipping Options
Logistics and shipping is a field that has deteriorated significantly in recent years. Small improvements, such as free shipping, have occurred in recent years, but nothing extraordinary in the shipping arena took off until 2013, when the same day delivery concept became popular.
Drones will be able to deliver products to local areas more efficiently and quickly in the near future.
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Increase In Conversion Rates Using Voice Search
In the ecommerce industry, voice search is taking the lead! It is becoming more popular, and retailers who want to increase their returns should include voice search features in their online portals as well.
All these point clearly states the importance of e-commerce and need of business transformation from offline to online.
Benefits of Moving Business Online
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Feasibility To Operate Business From Anywhere
One of the most highlighting aspects of having an online business is the ability to run it from anywhere in the world.
You are not required to live and work in the same location because all major operations can be managed online.
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Low Operation Costs
Another significant advantage of online selling is the lower cost of operation.
Because you won’t have to maintain the showroom or hire salespeople, or incur any other additional costs, your overall spending will be reduced.
In order to open the store, you’ll need to make some initial investments. But keep in mind that these are long-term investments that will pay off for a lifetime.
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No Time Boundations (24×7 Availability)
Time is one of the most significant constraints that an offline store faces. There is a limit to how many customers you can accept in an offline store.
Customers can now access online stores 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, eliminating all these boundations.
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Scalable & Easy To Reach A Wider Audience
Expansion is one of the major reasons why offline businesses fail. The challenge of managing multiple offline stores in various locations is similar to fighting a war with a butter knife.
However, by bringing your offline business online, you can avoid these issues and sell globally.
In comparison to a small town or a city, your target audience will now span the entire globe. And that’s where e-Commerce’s true power lies.
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Easy To Track The Business
Maintaining balance sheets and records is a time-consuming task that necessitates a lot of effort, time, and accuracy.
Even if you can really get all of these metrics correct, you’ll be able to analyze the actual performance (profit/loss).
In the case of eCommerce, however, everything is handled by them. All records are updated in real-time, with no margin for error, allowing sellers to track their monthly, weekly, daily, or yearly performance with just a few clicks.
Requirements/Checklist for Converting an Offline Business to an Online Business
The following are the prerequisites for taking an offline business online:
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Creating a Business Strategy
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Recognizing the Customer/Target Audience
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Deciding which products to sell
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Maintaining/Updating Inventory and Warehouse
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Attending to the Technical Requirements, such as an active internet connection, mobile phone, and so on.
How can you bring your offline business online?
Here are 12 easy steps to take to start moving your offline business online:
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Setting Up The Server – Select the right server for your eCommerce website based on its features and compatibility with your business model.
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Buy a Domain – Create your online identity by selecting an appropriate domain name for your business.
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Buy Cloud Hosting – Based on the size and needs of your business, select a secure and efficient hosting solution.
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Downloading a Framework – Choose a framework that meets all your business requirements, preferably Magento.
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Setting Up Your Website – Create your website from the scratch and move all your products to online.
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Configure POS and Payment Methods – Choose from a variety of payment gateways based on your target audience.
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Configure Shipping Methods – Include the shipping methods you want to use to ensure that your orders are fulfilled and delivered on time.
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Using PWA, build a mobile app – Develop a mobile app for your store that is highly responsive on all mobile devices.
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Check for License and Tax Compliance – Ensure that all legal obligations are met by paying attention to the license and tax structure.
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Enhance the website’s appeal – Make sure your website’s content is valuable enough to entice visitors to become customers.
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Marketing and SEO Planning – Increase your visibility by making it easier for search engines to find your websites and products.
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Exposing Your Website Via Many Channels – To attract customers, connect your website to multiple sales channels such as Amazon, eBay, and Walmart.
Wrapping It Up
In this article, I have shared the need for moving your offline business online. In today’s world, being online is essential for any business, that is planning to reach the wide pool of customers out there. To effectively create a business plan and goal, you must conduct thorough marketing research. As a result, it is possible to conclude that the online world is full of internet business opportunities that can indicate a company’s success.
I hope you will find the information in this article to be beneficial in moving your company to the online world. If you wish to start your online business right now, please contact us for further information. If you found this post useful and informative, please share it with your network. Please ask any questions you might have about this post in the comments section.
How long have you been planning the steps to create an Ecommerce App for your Business?Are you someone who’s still not sure about taking your medicine stores, grocery shop, supermarket store to online?The recent COVID-19 outbreak has totally changed the past scenarios. where buying and selling of goods can be done without going to shops and malls. So, it is high time to start an e-commerce app development to elevate your falling sales and services.
Developing an e-commerce app isn’t a big question . it’s a question of how to do it systematically. This blog explains the Steps to create an Ecommerce App
If an online store wants to acquire and retain customers effectively, it needs to offer the best possible customer experience in all channels. The key to doing this is by connecting with customers on all available points, providing a great experience each time.
In today’s busy world, the most effective touch point of online business is a seamless mobile experience. That’s because mobile traffic is for over 60% of all other traffic, with mobile sales quickly increasing. Furthermore, store shopper checks out the mobile site of that store as well for new updates and offers.
Check out these strong points that say people love to use in mobile than stores:
1.People love to shop online
According to a recent survey 64% of smartphone users are now using mobile phones to shop online.
According to a survey report from Clutch, the top attractive reasons for people to use e-commerce apps are as follows:
- To receive latest deals and offers(68%)
- Flexibility to buy products at any time(64%)
- Compare products and prices with other store(62%)
- Save time from the offline store(54%)
2. Small businesses perform better through mobile solutions
small business owners use mobile solutions for attracting new customers,to gain competitive advantage and to increase the sales. recent studies show that small businesses are making 30% more conversions on the mobile route than otherwise.
Steps to create an Ecommerce App
But how can we actually develop an effective mobile e-commerce app that results in more unique visitors ,engagement and sales. We have developed some successful e-commerce applications. And our experts have decade long experience in mobile app development. The process we follow at Fernweh Domain Enroll to build e-commerce applications is unique for every customer. Keep reading this blog to find out the exact steps we’ve used to build our Apps.
step 1. Identify Your Goal for your ecommerce app
Before you start creating your e-commerce app, it’s important to know what is your goal – and how you will measure the success of your Business. Your goals and KPIs will directly impact the features and service of app you want to develop.
To determine your future goals, you should know the current status of your business. How much traffic does your offline store generate on a monthly basis? How much of it is from mobile or from website? What is your mobile conversion rate?
Step 2. For whom are you creating your ecommerce app?
Once you know about your goal think about who your audience is B2B or B2C?Knowing your target audience will enhance your development process and improve your app marketing too.
Some easy steps to find out targeted audience
1.Audience’s average age?
2.Targeted Audience interests?
3.Which products do they already like and buy?
4.What do they read?
5.How are they finding our business?
The answers to these queries, together will make specifications for our Steps to create an E-commerce App.
3. Planning Essential Features
The Integration of the essential features for e-commerce apps is the next step on the e-commerce app development process. We need to understand that users are now more mobile-dependent. Hence it is very important to ensure mobile features in the application.
For example, an e-commerce app with products in disorder will disengage users and put them off. Some essential features for every mobile application focusing on e-commerce are:
- Authentication feature like social media login or two-step login features, etc
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Product search with categories and sub-types
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Rating and review systems
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Multiple payment methods that are fully secure
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Easy-in and out policy
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push notifications
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Customer support
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Tracking of the products
Step 4. Choose the right platform
For e-commerce retailers, there are two different kinds of methods you can choose from: Progressive Web Apps and Native Apps. Firstly PWAs are next-generation websites that offer the same kind of speed, interactivity, and performance as a native app. This can be used without downloading from app store ,Then you have Native Apps. These are downloaded and stored in a user’s phone. Native apps have to be developed separately for both iOS and Android. Operating System specific development (iOS and Android) full use of all the features a mobile phone.
Step 5. Pick the right budget and process
Now that we have figured out what our e-commerce app needs Now let’s talk about budget and process.
The big questions here are: how much time, money and resources we want to invest? And how do you want your App when sending out push messages, adding new features, changing your design, etc.
Making a bespoke app
With this process, you need to hire a development team to develop a brand new app. Firstly, a bespoke app helps you to be very specific about your requirements. Bespoke App is expensive and also it is a long development process. when money is not a matter we can use Bespoke App.
SAAS solution
Small and medium size stores usually choose this option, but for big stores some custom adjustments are needed. E-commerce apps based on SAAS- technology are fast and easy to develop . smart plugins can turn your web store into a Progressive web App or native app. But With SAAS-solutions, you can’t just pick any feature or integration you want; you can only pick the features that are available. But usually, SAAS-solutions offer all the features to be used on mobile App. For instance, all of the features mentioned above, are part of the app package at Dli’n E-commerce App by Fernweh DomainEnroll.
Depending on how much you can invest on development process and how flexible your App need to be, you can choose any one option: develop a bespoke app, or make use of SaaS solution.
Step 6. Market your app
Although this blog is about creating e-commerce apps, marketing them afterward is very important. After all, how good is the e-commerce app .The social media promotions, the google ads, video ads and many other techniques can help your app get the right reach ,downloads, product views, or purchases.
Final words
Now you have the Information and steps to create a successful e-commerce app. If you want to start with yours today, contact us for more Information.
We’ve helped many e-commerce brands make and market their apps, and we’ll be Happy to do the same for you next.
Our service is affordable, with low start-up costs and even more attractive monthly pricing Packages. We can create and market your e-commerce app also update it as time goes on.
The E-Commerce sector is expanding as a result of a projected growth and the impact of 2020 on commerce. Every day, more retailers are shifting to online sales, while entrepreneurs are finding their footing through E-Commerce enterprises.
Global E-commerce sales will reach $6.54 trillion by 2022, up from $3.53 trillion in 2019.That’s a significant change, and the good news is that it’s not a new phenomenon.
In the coming years, a lot of remarkable things are predicted to happen in e-commerce. We’re here to assist you understand how e-commerce will evolve in the future.
Future of E-Commerce Marketing
Let’s take a look at some of the e-Commerce trends that are affecting the future of this business right now.
It encompasses technology that attract more shoppers, as well as frameworks that help construct stronger e-Commerce ecosystems and attract more shoppers. I’ve also put up new tactics that e-Commerce behemoths use for more efficient marketing. So let’s get started:
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Mobile Shopping Revolution
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Mobile is constantly reshaping the customer engagement landscape. Over the last several years, the mobile market has developed and the mindset of shoppers to complete their transaction without having to go through a desktop is driving the increased prevalence of mobile usage in e-Commerce.
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Ecommerce AI Systems
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AI appears to be a trendy topic these days. It’s no secret that integrating AI into the business process may benefit a wide range of businesses, whether it results in improved task and time management for staff or simply a more pleasant consumer experience.
Potential future AI assistants will be able to handle many tasks, such as answering clients’ inquiries and concerns, as well as dealing with inventories and orders. With the advance of AI Systems, the assistants will be able to perform numerous tasks, which is why some industry experts believe AI will begin to dominate the e-commerce industry.
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Ecommerce using Voice Search
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You’ve seen the benefits of technologies like virtual teleconference apps; now it’s time to consider voice search technology.
Everything related to voice commands and searches is skyrocketing. In 2020, smart speaker sales will have surpassed 150 million devices. Sixty-five percent of the 25-49 age group utilises a voice-enabled gadget at least once every day. As a result, the ‘voice revolution’ has already begun and is expanding.
If you are enabling voice search feature in your e-commerce business, you are allowing your consumers to search for products within your online store using their voices, rather than any physical keyboard input. If you already using a voice assistant, such as Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa, voice search queries for e-commerce operate similarly.
Voice search makes use of artificial intelligence voice recognition, which combines the fields of computing and linguistics to allow people to search for things without typing. The AI recognises a person’s words and phrases, as well as the phonemes that help distinguish one word from another. A customer can start a voice search by simply clicking on the microphone icon on their device.
When people conduct a manual search by typing, errors occur. Perhaps someone misspells the name of a brand or product in their search terms. When this occurs, the search engine’s AI usually detects the error and suggests what it believes the customer is saying. Voice search AI can also do this, recommending what to search for.
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Ecommerce Personalization Predictions
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Customers expectation of personalization has increased from 2020 and it has become an ecommerce standard mere than just a trend. In fact, 33% of customers have ended their relationship with a business that provides minimal or no personalisation.
Ecommerce stores lack a person who can assist us with our browsing and recommend things to us in person. As a result, ecommerce organizations are striving nowadays to replicate this experience by making their websites more personable and visually appealing.
Moreover, personalization has grown into a more refined marketing strategy. Personalization is no longer limited to simply addressing a customer by name. One approach for ecommerce companies to become more personalised for clients is to keep track of their preferences and modify their ecommerce experience depending on demographics, browsing behavior, purchasing history, and other data pertinent to their shopping journey.
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New Payment Options Will Emerge
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Payment options are an important motivator for customers to complete a transaction. They will not buy from your online store unless they have their preferred payment method available. This is why, in order to remain competitive, you should keep an eye out for new payment methods that your prospective buyers require.
Digital wallets such as Google Pay, PayPal, Apple Pay, and Samsung Pay are currently widely used by ecommerce businesses. This digital service enables customers to make purchases via electronic transactions, resulting in a more frictionless shopping experience. These types of digital payments are also in high demand. Indeed, 70% of people believe that by 2030, digital payments will have surpassed cash and credit cards.
Cryptocurrency, on the other hand, has been gaining popularity from quite a sometime. So far, we’ve seen cryptocurrency used for huge business transactions. Needless to say, as the demand for alternative payment methods grows, several ecommerce platforms create their own payment gateway for their merchants. You no longer need to rely on third-party gateways.
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Ecommerce Delivery Drones
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Drones are flying robots that can be operated manually or programmed to fly on their own. So, how do flying robots relate to ecommerce, you may wonder?
Some believe that in the future, drones may be able to deliver orders to customers, thereby replacing delivery staffs. Drones, as you might expect, are far faster than people. This will dramatically reduce delivery time, resulting in items being delivered faster than ever before. This will undoubtedly benefit both businesses and customers, which is why many ecommerce companies are enthusiastic about this trend. Companies’ costs will be substantially lower, and customers will obtain what they need in much less time.
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Ecommerce Social Media Shopping
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Today, social media platforms play a significant part in our lives. Many firms are aware of this reality, and as a result, they are shifting their marketing efforts to social networking platforms in order to reach a broader audience.
Sellers today can do far more than simply advertise on Facebook, Instagram, or any other social site. With the advancement of social media’s selling features, users may now purchase things on social media platforms in a simple and timely manner.
Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, and YouTube are among the social media platforms that have significantly improved their social selling features. Instagram, for example, introduced the ‘shoppable post’ feature, which allows businesses to include product tags in their posts and product stickers in their stories.
So, how do these statistics affect ecommerce? Knowing that millions of people use these apps each year gives ecommerce business owners an advantage. People buy through social media on a daily basis, so there is no better time to invest in social media marketing and selling than right now.
Final Thoughts on the Future of Ecommerce
If you’re unsure whether ecommerce is worth investing in, hopefully these statistics will help you make a decision.
It is expected that ecommerce purchases will increase from 14.1 percent to 22 percent by 2023. These estimates are extremely optimistic, indicating that ecommerce as a business has yet to reach its full potential. Mobile ecommerce sales are expected to increase as well, reaching nearly $5 trillion by 2022.
What about 20 years from now? Statistics show that by 2040, nearly 95 percent of all purchases will be made through ecommerce, which is certainly food for thought for all business owners.
To ensure that your ecommerce dreams come true, we’ve created a comprehensive guide on how to start your first online business, which you should read.
What eCommerce technological trends do you believe will have a significant impact in the future? Leave your thoughts in the comments area.
Do you require assistance in deploying these eCommerce technologies? We offer eCommerce app development services to assist you improve your platform’s digital shopping experience.
Nowadays having a responsive website alone is not enough. Those days are gone when website owners used to prefer websites,email marketing,social media ads etc to gain customers.
Now mobile apps are playing a vital role in growing relationship between business and customers. E-commerce mobile app help business owners to target customers anytime and anywhere.Most top eCommerce apps send push notifications to smartphone users in a regular interval of time. In comparison with traditional SMS nd Email push notifications are much more cheaper promotion channel .
About 72.9% of e-Commerce sales are likely to be generated from mobile devices. mobile app development for the shopping site is not expensive but an important part of business. Most of the companies started upgrading their websites into a complete e-Commerce mobile app.
You will make your business website mobile responsive, but have you ever thought of having an e-Commerce app for your business? Are you still trying your hands in m-Commerce? Here are some information that can give you more information to have your own e-Commerce mobile app.
What is the advantage of an e-Commerce app?
Direct marketing channel
One of the main advantage of e-Commerce mobile app is that it offers a direct marketplace channel to the online store. With an e-commerce app, you can constantly stay in touch with customers. The push notifications of the e-Commerce mobile app is a much easier option to reach out to the online shopabout the various offerings of the store. Investing in an e-Commerce mobile app will definitely expensive in the beginning, but, the benefits that you’ll have are endless. Now a lot of budget friendly solutions are also available.
Increased brand recognition
By using e-commerce apps the brands find an easy way to connect with their customers. Most of the customers spend lot of time on their mobile screen. Around 32% of App users uninstall their app due to bad user experience or if they don’t find it useful. So Brands should offer the best Mobile user experience to the users.
Improved marketing communication
Now customers always stay connected with the brands 24/7.Mobile devices have improved the way users interact with the online store. now customers prefer mobile shopping. so marketing through mobile devices become very important .mobile commerce may also be used to offer new deals, discounts, and coupons to customers more efficiently.
Higher conversion rate
Mobile e-Commerce applications assist in higher conversion rates. App conversion rate is 157% higher than mobile web conversion. When customers plan to shop online, they will go for a smooth purchasing process.
Let’s check out reasons why your business needs a mobile app:
- Mobile app features, like push notifications, assists in conversions. This can share notifications with your customer database about the new deals and offers. Apps can send updates when a product is back in stock.
- It saves all the information like payment and shipping details for easy checkouts.It also offer multiple payment options to choose from.
- Also, with a e-Commerce app, this can be integrated with mobile wallet applications for easy checkout.
personalized shopping experience to customers
Your business must consult an e-Commerce mobile app builder for crafting the best apps for your business. For instance, as a customer is done signing up for receiving emails from your brand, you can segment them into on factors such as gender,relationship status, location, and age. The next step includes sending targeted emails to different groups to elevate their user experience.
Increase Retention Rates in e-Commerce app
Exclusive Content
Retention rate represents the percentage of users still using your app after a particular time period. You may implement the offers that they can avail via mobile app.
- Reward System
Loyalty programs can be implemented. Point based pattern can be use to win a free item or offers or can avail bonus points for their future purchases. - Advanced Support
You should establish perfect communication between your customers and business store. customers can be offered issues in the app via chat-bot or live 24/7 chat support. - Secure shopping experiences
A lot of e-commerce security problems rise of e-commerce by using illegal attempts to interrupt user payment data. Mobile shopping is much more secure than web transactions as data is stored in the app
Utilize the benefits of Geo positioning integration
e-Commerce app also allows you to use beacon technology, which is effective for business owners who have a physical store in addition to their online store. With the help of this technology, you can send a messages and notification to customers who are in close proximity to your store with a n offer or promotion to visit your physical location and get a discount or some other offer. There is called proximity marketing, which is expected to reach a value of $52.46 billion by 2022.
Final Words
With the new technologies available in smartphones, people have reduced spending time on laptops and desktops. This makes sense because people are going for mobile and in order for companies to reach out to their potential customers, a mobile app is absolutely necessary.
How much does it cost for an e-Commerce app?
Building e-Commerce app is always project-specific. The average cost for an e-Commerce app is around $50,000, and it may be higher depending on the platform and tools.
Fernweh Domainenroll is an E-commerce application development company with dozens of successful projects completed. We have now launched Dli’n an e-commerce App providing e-commerce development services for your online business, to solve, and increase your company’s growth strategy. we provide both ios e-commerce applications and android e-commerce applications. Contact us to discuss more about the specifications of an e-Commerce mobile app for your business!