Mobile phones are very comfortably integrated in the day-to-day lives of individuals. It thus goes without saying that mobile applications are steadily attaining momentum in all business sectors, especially retail. Furthermore it makes sense for retailers to develop an app to offer a better shopping experience.
M-Commerce is thereby the new focal interest doing rounds in the retail domain.

Retail Shopping Boost with Mobile Technology

47% of US smartphone owners use shopping apps, accessing them an average of 17 times per month

M-Commerce has turned the world into a global marketplace for the simple fact that traditional desktops have been replaced by Smartphone and tablet devices. Advancement in technology has created many challenges for retailers as products sold on the Internet are often sold at a cheaper price owing to less overhead costs. A predictive analytics report from a reputed e-commerce marketing source Custora stated that the mobile commerce market would hit sales of $60B by the end of 2015. As interesting the statistics were, and given the fact the many offers laid down by reputed e-commerce giants such a Amazon, reaching the estimated figure was certainly a piece of cake.

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How is M-commerce important for your business?

Most retailers are going the mobile way bringing in effective solutions for their M-commerce business. It is also found that there has been a considerate increase in the number of applications found on the Ecommerce domain highlighting enhanced use of mobile apps compared to websites.

Another fact finder:

34% of smartphone owners who used a smartphone on their last shopping trip used a retailer’s mobile application

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Read Also : Branding Mobile Apps; a new sales pitch

So how does an app help boost your retail business?

  • Better sales opportunities are created for mobile shoppers with exciting deals and offers
  • As per latest findings only 83% of the top retailers worldwide are using mobile solutions
  • Customer experience is of utmost importance in this domain because a survey concluded that more than 65% of consumers on apps made a purchase only when the website they were on was Smartphone friendly.

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M-commerce Solution

  • Wider Reach: M-commerce creates a bigger appeal to consumers as well as retailers for the fact that smartphones are carried everywhere by consumers wherever they go. This in turn increases opportunities to practice location based sales and marketing.
  • Cost Effective: M-commerce is easy and cost effective because of reduced overheads. Apart from this building and maintaining a mobile app is less expensive compared to a website
  • Easy way of shopping: There is an integrated payment solution backed with other features that comes with M-commerce offering ease of shopping. Besides there is also the convenience to shop anytime, anywhere.
  • Competitive Edge: New channels for sales and information are open giving you a competitive edge in your business.
  • Direct Communication Channel with the Customer: Ability to stay in touch with the customer using push notifications. Provides an effective and relatively cheap direct marketing channel to keep the customer aware of latest offers.

To conclude, once customers get accustomed to the shopping experience online, the trust is further transferred into the use of app and then a habit. There are many different ideas to enhance sales and a mobile app is a strong channel that bridges the gap between products and consumers.