There are quite a few popular e-commerce companies like Amazon, eBay, Flipkart, BigBasket and what not? E-commerce companies have started ruling our lives like anything now. Be it, customers or sellers, it has changed the way of buying and selling things worldwide. Ten years back it used to be a risky initiative to even start any business. The whole process of building shops and gathering employees used to be hectic. Now, things have changed. Thanks to retail mobile app development as sellers need only an e-store to start a business! So, should retailers go for mobile app development companies as long-term partners? And if yes, then why? Keep reading to know more.
Trends in Mobile E-Commerce
Well, why is e-commerce necessary for retailers? How is it profitable for them? Moreover, statistics show that mobile devices, phones and tablets used by consumers are the driving force for e-commerce.
According to eMarketer, the retail sales of e-commerce reached $2.3 trillion in 2017. This is a 23.2% increase compared to the previous year. Its mobile share stood at 58.9%, or $1.36 trillion. In 2021, mobile e-commerce could rope in $3.56 trillion making up a stunning three quarters (72.9%) of e-commerce sales.
It is clear that mobile e-commerce will grow at a steady rate in the coming future. As more and more mobile apps are being downloaded by consumers to make purchases, retail mobile app development will grow too. When the forecast is so promising, why not know more about the reasons to opt for this?
Why opt for retail mobile app development?
On-demand service
E-commerce has revolutionised the business trends. It has contributed so much to the on-demand economy by fulfilling the needs of customers. How? Let us have a look?
Provide huge information
Think about a single list of products in a grocery store with a huge crowd of people buying things. Will each customer know the exact price of the products? Will the shopkeeper have the time to explain the catalogues to his buyers? Of course, no. Thanks to retail mobile app development. Retailers can provide customers with a huge amount of information about various products, discounts, offers, coupon codes etc. But, this isn’t possible in physical stores. Sometimes it also becomes difficult to train employees to respond to customers looking for specific products.
Product catalogues and datasheets
Customers must get information about any product at any time of day or any day of the week. It is only through information that consumers decide to buy the products. If an e-commerce website or mobile app offers extra information to their customers without any issue, it increases their involvement in buying. Vendors can attract more customers as they will find it easier to buy products with more information. Getting descriptions and details from an online product catalogue will also not be a problem anymore.
Fulfilling the demands of customers
The strategy of e-commerce trend nowadays is what the Google defines as “Micro-moments”. These are the important demands of customers such as “I want to know, I want to buy, I want to go, and I want to do” moments. Meeting the customers’ demand at once is what on-demand is all about. An e-commerce website development company can use such “micro-moments” and help in meeting the demands of targeted customers.
Besides, e-commerce companies like Amazon use instructional “how to do” videos which help buyers to reach their products soon. Embedding such videos into the mobile app for easy access will be useful for customers. Also, if customers want to buy certain products by physical examination, providing information about nearby outlets as and when the customer demands, helps in boosting the business.
Branding and better growth opportunities
Branding is an important part of retail mobile app development. It helps sellers in many ways. In fact, they have better growth opportunities by maintaining online stores.
Attract new customers
Physical retail shops are run by branding and maintaining good relationships. The scope of attracting new customers is less. But, online retail is run through the traffic coming from search engines. This means that you can attract customers from any part of the world. Also, e-store sellers and buyers can connect with each other in a better way. Customers can buy anything from any corner of the world thereby making the pool of customers larger for retailers. If a seller wants to expand his market for niche products such as dog food or art and craft materials, the retail mobile app development is the best option.
Brand awareness
E-commerce industry always helps Business- to Business organizations by getting new customers. This, in turn, helps e-commerce businesses to increase their brand awareness in the market. Also, other ways to enhance one’s E-commerce website search engine optimization is by building web pages that search engines crawlers can index. This can help you reach the target audience through your site too.
Convenience and Competence
E-commerce is a competent technique for effective business transactions. Moreover, the cost of expanding one’s business with physical shops in different locations is a lot more than handling an e-store. The fewer licenses and flexible permits for starting an online business make consulting an e-commerce application development company a better option. An e-store saves you lots of money and operations like billing customers and managing inventory don’t need any employees.
Analysing sales and consumers’ buying habits
One of the best things about e-commerce is that retailers can keep an eye on their consumers’ buying habits and interests. They can tailor their offers, making it suitable according to the consumers’ requirements. As you can meet their needs in an instant manner, you can build long-lasting relationships with them. Tools like Google Analytics, Google Webmasters and Facebook Audience Insights can help one to carry out a thorough research about customer behaviour analysis.
Analytics is also another important aspect. Retailers can calculate, evaluate and maintain a record of various data. This includes sales or customer effectiveness, marketing campaigns, product mix, and more.
Cost-effectiveness and open for 24*7
Who doesn’t want to decrease the costs of their business? Everybody wants that. By opting for e-commerce, retailers can benefit a lot in terms of cost-effectiveness. How? Let’s see.
Cost of Advertising and Marketing
Spending your money on advertising and marketing won’t cost you lots of money if you choose e-commerce. Some well-known and cost-effective advertising channels are enough to do the whole work for you. This includes social media traffic, pay-per-click and organic search engine traffic.
Employees to run business
Any brick and mortar shop or departmental store will need many employees to run your business. But, with e-commerce, there is an automatic system for handling everything. Be it check-out, billing, inventory management or payments, an e-commerce website or mobile app doesn’t need any employees to handle such operations.
Cheap option
Sellers don’t need to invest their money in building a store, infrastructure or insurance. You only need a unique idea, products and a well-designed website or mobile app to reach your precious customers. That is why e-commerce is a very cheap and reasonable option.
No Travel Expenses
Nobody likes to go shopping for hours and hours travelling from one place to another just for getting the best products. But, now customers don’t have to travel to reach their favourite stores. In fact, even shopkeepers don’t need to worry about losing peak hours of sales in their shops. E-commerce allows customers to visit the shopping mobile app anytime without travelling. You need only a few mouse clicks and customers can buy anything at any time.
Availability
The most beneficial aspect of e-commerce for retailers is that the store timings are 24*7*365. Merchants can run e-commerce websites all the time even from their homes. This will help them to increase their sales and boost their number of orders.
Signing off…
E-commerce is the need of the hour and its need is increasing day by day. Today, more and more people are purchasing goods online from the comfort of their home. In fact, e-commerce has remoulded the way companies are doing business. It has become a necessity for every businessman who is looking to have an online store. As it offers a huge range of benefits to retailers and merchants, they want to develop their own online stores. But, they must consider having long-term partnerships with e-commerce website and app development companies. Besides, it is the era of the internet.
