The technological world moves quickly, and you need to stay ahead of the times. As a business owner, you cannot afford to stay behind while everyone else moves on ahead. You’ll never know when a competitor is going to take advantage of app development and create a mobile app for eCommerce website and attract all the customers in your market away from your business.

According to a report by Digital Commerce 360, in 2014 traffic to mCommerce apps exceeded the traffic to desktop eCommerce websites. Plus, there was a prediction made by Business Insider Intelligence that 45% of the eCommerce market is going to come from mobile commerce by the year 2020. Considering the eCommerce market is worth $600 billion, that is a huge portion of the money coming from mobile commerce. Still thinking whether you need a mobile app for eCommerce website?

A graphic showcasing top eCommerce platforms tailored for small businesses, highlighting features and benefits for entrepreneurs.

How can you benefit from a mobile app for eCommerce website?

Your business can grow extensively from a mobile app. If you can create an iOS or Android app for your website which allows your customers to shop for your products, you will be able to manage their experience much better than you could if they were going to your website.

Rather than praying they go to your website or click on your banner advertisements, an installed app gives you the power to send push notifications directly to their mobile device. You can use these notifications to promote products which are like what the person purchased in the past. With this much control, you can increase your sales a lot.

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Why can’t I just depend on my eCommerce website if it’s mobile-optimized?

Of course, it is important to have a website which is optimized for mobile users. But your website is still going to have restrictions when it comes to your marketing efforts, especially if a visitor does not buy anything after they first visit your website. If they do buy something, the best you can do is to get them to subscribe to your email newsletter and then upsell products to them in the future. So, the customer would visit your landing webpage, purchase the product that you promote, and then receives email promotions from you in the future.

This all might be fine, but what about the people who don’t purchase something the first time out? There are always going to be people like that. How do you get their attention in the future? The only solution is to create an app for your website.

The power of mCommerce apps

The experience that people have at your eCommerce store can be better controlled by an app. Third-party browsers do not have to be relied on to grow a buyer list and build sales.

Aside from the possibility of retargeting customers, a mobile commerce app provides the perfect opportunity to create a loyalty program. This means that if someone purchases your product, they will receive a bonus of some kind so that they will have a reason to come back and purchase more products from you in the future.

Starbucks has a loyalty program like this. Someone who purchases a drink will receive stars. If they can save up a certain number of stars, they can exchange them for a free coffee or beverage. Their loyalty program can be accessed on their website and mobile app, although the latter is more successful for them.

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Loyalty cards account for about 41% of the total number of transactions at Starbucks while their mobile app accounts for 24%. So, if they did not have a mobile app, their number of sales would drop hard. They use special mobile programs, such as Mobile Order & Pay, to let people place preorders which let them skip the long lines. It also increases their loyalty potential to the fullest. The app motivates them to keep making purchases while increasing their customer loyalty.

When is the perfect time to create a mobile app for a website?

Now you know why you should create a mobile app for the eCommerce website. So, you are probably wondering when you should build your app and get the whole app development process started so that you can promote your e-commerce store through it.

1. You realize that you want to keep up with the competition

Your competition knows the importance of creating apps for their ecommerce website. You’d be foolish not to do the same.

If you keep procrastinating until you reach that perfect time to build the app, then you will never build it. By the time you come to the realization that you must build it, the market will have already changed.

Remember how websites dominated the marketplace when they were new? People never had an online option for shopping before and once they did, everyone joined the bandwagon. The businesses that built websites early on profited the most from them.

Sears Canada is a good example to mention. They never kept up with market changes that well. As a result, they’re about to go out of business after many years of being a top retailer. Of course, there were other factors that contributed to this too, but it was their insistence on continuing to target in-store customers that led to their demise.

2. When mobile is sending you most of your traffic

If mobile is the primary source of your online traffic, then you must create a mobile app for your eCommerce website to target these customers. Since they are clearly already using their mobile devices to shop at your store, the mobile commerce app will make their shopping experience so much better and easier.

Just think about how you can use push notifications to target customers in the long-term with your mobile app. If you don’t take advantage of this opportunity, you are throwing money away for sure.

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3. Get the resources to make it

Don’t put yourself in a huge amount of debt just to develop a mobile app for the eCommerce website. You would need to be 100% confident that building your app will grow your business.. Since most people are not this confident in the beginning, then just keep working on your website platform and bring in new customers with it. Eventually, you will obtain the necessary resources to take the next step and hire an app development company to create app for your website.

The cost of this investment will depend on if you build the app within your own facility or you hire a mobile app development agency to build it.

Conclusion

You need to take advantage of mobile commerce while it is still trending. If you don’t, then you will miss out.

According to a 2016 comScore survey, 51% of shoppers bought products online. A year before this, this number was only 48%. Also, out of all smartphone users, 44% of them use their smartphones to purchase products via mobile commerce apps. A prediction from the Wall Street Journal suggests that about 190 million American consumers will purchase products over the internet in 2018.

People are no longer afraid to shop online. It is a very common thing now because consumers are comfortable with it. They are now growing to be more comfortable with mobile purchases too. You need to take action and create a mobile app for the eCommerce website to promote your business today. If you have the courage to proceed, contact us right away and we will assist you in making this dream a reality. Just a little tip for you, start with Minimum Viable Product to save your money and release the working app as soon as possible to outrun your competitors and get ahead of them.

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