The online retail industry is booming like never before. Add to it the predicted smart phone penetration to more than 6 billion users by 2020. To address customers’ digital needs and wants, retailers should understand in what way mobile devices are influencing customer psyche and the mobility solutions that drive this growth.
Realizing the immense potential of mobility services, smart retailers are competing to incorporate every bit of intelligent technology on their e-commerce websites to enhance online shopping experience for buyers. This digital influence has worked in two directions:
- Persuading customers to buy more online as well as increasing footfalls to physical stores for buyers looking for an omnichannel experience.
- Collection of accurate analytics by retailers and using it to their advantage to increase sales by focused marketing.
The Role of Mobility and Apps
A lot of retailers are now favoring apps for business as they realize its potential to be a major revenue stream. From product display to increasing customer engagement, apps can be targeted in a variety of ways to influence shopping behavior and increase sales.
- Product Catalog Apps: Mobile app solutions offer an all-inclusive and delightful shopping experience to customers. A digital product catalog can provide a rich brand experience and entice customers to view products on their phones or tablets. Also, interactive product view, demos and reviews via the app can aid in propelling sales.
- Location Based Apps: You can track your customers through location based apps and offer them with the right promotions, coupons and deals. Geofencing technology can remind your customers to visit your store if they are in the vicinity or passing by. Customers can search for the nearest store and even search for relevant products inside the store.
- Augmented Reality (AR): This is the hottest technology to be integrated in mobile apps lately. Your retail business can be spiced up using visual dynamics to display your products in a 3D setting with a 360-degree view and even let customers visualize it in various settings.
- Employee-Focused Apps: Store owners can provide employees with a smart phone or tablet-based procurement application with enterprise grade bar-code scanning for quick product sourcing. Retail floor staff can quickly access information to serve customers more efficiently. These apps can boost inventory management, improve store operational efficiency and on-the-spot customer support and contribute in retail industry automation.
Focus on Retail Analytics
Mobile devices have empowered retailers with insight into customer shopping behavior, visit frequency, visit duration, repeat visitor ratio etc. Retailers can leverage customer insights and experiences to create and execute profitable marketing strategies to reach out and nurture their customers. Products can be stocked up according to the trend by identifying customers likely to be interested in them, optimize prices for a competitive edge and use effective marketing to target these customers.
Speed of Service
For any buyer, the need to have a newly purchased product in hand is paramount after having spent days of deliberating. Online retailers are working like furious on ways to deliver physical goods into customers’ hands faster. Initiatives like same-day delivery and pick-up-in-store after paying online are finding much resonance with shoppers. Also, better tracking features and alerts via notifications keeps the buyer informed of exact location of product and time of delivery. The narrowing of limitations of online stores over brick-and-mortar ones eventually may lead to favoring of online purchases in the future through smart phones.
Mobile Payment Services
The need to withdraw cash from ATMs is dwindling by the day. Almost all payments can be done via mobile, from utilities to grocery bills. In 2015, about 358 million Chinese or roughly half of China’s internet users made payments through mobile devices according to a government report which is a two-third increase from 2014. Retailers are finding new ways to make payment easier and quicker. Even traditional retailers are trying to link payment systems to their e-commerce sites. Mobile consumers are slowly developing trust in mobile wallets as it is more secure and reduces the hassles of handling multiple cards or withdrawing from ATMs.
The future looks bright for retailers with foresight to integrate mobile technology in their businesses along with focus on retail industry automation. We have dedicated our time and expertise to craft custom mobile app solutions to meet the unique needs of each customer. For your mobile app development and web application development requirements, you can contact us today.
