eCommerce and Mobile Apps, An Organized Chaos Reigns Supreme! As most other technology driven approaches, eCommerce keeps adapting & reinventing itself right from the time it came into vogue way back in the nineties. eCommerce adapts into its fold a growing number of devices right from the smart phones to the smart watches besides of course the traditional computers & laptops. The ecosystem turns into a completely new kind of commerce as it keeps growing, adding to itself the power of BI & Analytics, Mobile Technologies, Social Media, the Cloud and now even Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence & the Chatbots. Niche technologies like the beacons offer completely different ways of fusing the physical & the digital aspects of catering to customers and offer retail experiences, B2B experiences and other B2C experiences integrated closely with the millennial world eCommerce. Specialized eCommerce apps by app development companies tap in into the psyche of the millennial user with the intent of keeping the new age shopper engaged in novel ways.
Commerce Chaos as It Evolved Shopping on the internet is eCommerce as normally understood. The simplest definition of e-commerce states that it is the trading of services, products or goods online or over the internet. Shopping online is a done thing, a great time saver and an efficient means
to procure various services or products ranging from simple products & services to ondemand services too. And the history and chronology of eCommerce, mCommerce and the way it gets reinvented continuously becomes interesting too! The eCommerce Timeline
The early seventies saw the predecessor of internet – Arpanet facilitating sales between students.
In the eighties, the B2B & B2C online shopping systems setup. Launch of Electronic Malls, credit cards, telephone banking & ATM machines contribute to the fast pace growth of e-commerce.
The early nineties saw e-Commerce become more structured. Browsers with secure transactions became available. First software available for sales online with online credit card transactions become possible.
In the late nineties, the first comprehensive websites for e-commerce are built in US & Western Europe. Increasing number of countries, besides the stronger economies of the western world join the e-commerce marketplace.
Term “mobile eCommerce” was coined in 1997 at the launch of Global Mobile Commerce Forum. 100 organizations joined the forum within the first year
The late nineties saw the financial platforms being setup to promote transactions on m-eCommerce based offerings.
The later part of last decade hosted the phenomenal growth in terms of mobile based location services, banking and purchasing integrated with m-eCommerce features.
The new millennia saw – Amazon post first yearly profit. Quite many of mergers & acquisitions result into a mature eCommerce market, such eBay buys Paypal. Product ranges keep adding and move beyond books, magazines, accessories, apparels, household goods and entertainment.
Today eCommerce & mCommerce become a complete mashup to offer a new age commerce, integrated into each other seamlessly and practically so. Today, almost every major e-commerce presence on the web has a mobile app to cater to the changing expectations.
Into the Psyche of a Mobile App User The transition of the millennials to making the smart phones as the devices of choice is an exceptional one. Spending time on mobiles and the dependency to do almost everything on these is the way of doing things today. Statistics indicate that mobile commerce is all set to touch the $150 billion mark in the US in a couple of years. The study also indicates how the conversion rates to purchase are higher by almost 25% on the mobiles than on the web. It is then up to the companies to understand this psyche to keep the new age user engaged is a much more trickier task than judged. The Millennial User is Forever Active on the Phone Research & studies have indicated that on an average, an active smartphone user unlocks the phone more than a hundred times in a single day. Even on the go there are high chances of pre-shopping happening across a wide variety of categories. General consensus is that an app is effective in capturing the necessary attention if it can be used seamlessly across devices and provides relevant & contextual information. App UX design too gains a growing importance in the quest to engage the user. Doing it With Mobiles is Happening It really is all about convenience and did start with banking & paying bills. Almost every service is better availed on the phone for the users today and so is shopping on the app. App development companies offer apps for retail giants, banks, utilities, ticketing which become a part of our smaller screens along with specialized apps for on-demand services like booking cabs, ordering meals and much more. Mobile services supporting local languages are an additional advantage for customers as well as marketers and they are nothing short of a boon in geographies where the phone penetration is higher and the linguistic diversity is higher. Regions like India & Europe are classic examples for these. So when Snapdeal started offering their app in multiple regional languages in India, they struck the right chord!
Rules of Thumb for Mobile Apps for eCommerce Right from onboarding to remaining connected with the users, mobile apps for need to follow a few rules of thumb to be on the top of the charts.
Creating the First Impression with Onboarding The first impression is truly the last one and onboarding in mobile apps targeted towards facilitating eCommerce solutions becomes very critical in getting the user’s attention and enhancing the user experiences. Apps strive to strike the mythical balance between technology & usability and onboarding puts across the usefulness of the apps to the users.
The Best Fit for Each Using Personalization The power of right context information is way more powerful than the same thing for all. A typical smartphone user is likely to respond more towards contextual information as part of device interaction and consequently responds better. Data gathered from the app should be able to determine the user intent & behavior patterns to present engaging information. Custom ecommerce development caters to these niches.
Word of Mobile is the New Word of Mouth with Social Media Data from social chatter impacts the social media communities like none other. Marketers need to reinvent their strategies for the mobile apps to keep up continuous analysis gathered through the apps and strategize the way the apps connect with the users.
Making the Digital & the Physical Seamless The millennial mobile app is responsible for strengthening the user experiences by putting things into context & making them relevant. Driven by technologies like AR, VR, AI & NLP and facilitated by approaches like the Internet of Things mobile apps should fuse the digital & the physical world.
Omnichannel the Key for User Engagement Seamlessness across devices and mediums pushes the eCommerce experiences beyond multichannel interactions. What is delivered then is an integrated & uniform, one stop experience across channels keeping the users engaged continuously.
The Rise of Artificial Intelligence & Chatbots Bots bring in the next disruption to the apps with voice enabled features. The conversational experiences become an integral part of the eCommerce ecosystem with the power of AI and natural language processing.
In a Nutshell Mobile app development for eCommerce becomes a tricky business, but apps developed using specialized custom ecommerce development takes the approach forward keeping in mind a few basic norms to put this new age requirement at the forefront of all the solutions designed.
Mobile App Development for eCommerce Design a scalable and easily maintainable architecture Develop a conducive, assured environment for secure transactions and data privacy Constantly check the efficiency of the system and ensure the correct speed and dependability Ensure efficient execution Support both online and traditional methodologies Integrate with other business logic Provide quick enhancements of existing applications to keep up pace with technology Create e-commerce application to improve business performances Ensure that the system is search engine visible by implementing SEO principles Keep the content rich enough to entice the users Create modern and consistent look and feel of the interfaces across the devices Enable special features such as rich media and advanced search and discovery
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