WE LOVE SHOPPING! ALL OF US! Well, most of us do and thanks to e-commerce for bringing the shopping experience right to our mobile screens. Irrespective of the place or time, people shop right from the comfort of their homes on their mobile devices. We owe to the e-commerce boom for bringing this revolution right to our home screens.
The e-commerce websites were revolutionary a few years ago. Now the online shopping revolution has been replaced by e-commerce applications. E-commerce apps are the way to go for the tech-savvy shoppers worldwide as they bring the shopping experience right to their mobile screens.
Before we divulge into how to build a conversion centric app for e-commerce, let’s discuss a few facts and figures: According to a research, 64% of the smartphone users are now using their mobile devices to shop online. 24% of the adult US population that uses an iOS device has used a shopping application on their devices and 26% of the adults US population that uses an Android device has used a shopping application during the past three months.
Traffic from the mobile devices will increase 26 times in the next 4 years. 38% of smartphone users prefer using a shopping app. Taking these numbers into account, getting a mobile application built for your business is a great idea.
Businesses are now changing their preferences to building a mobile application instead of a developing just an e-commerce website. Building an app has numerous advantages with the primary advantage of not having to travel worldwide to market your business/brand and advertise it to people right on their phone screens. We’ll now provide you a guide to a conversion centric e-commerce app development.
Right from the conceptualization of your idea to the development of the app, it is a tiresome process that has to take into account a lot of things. Ease of navigation, uniqueness of the idea, accessibility, and the communication flow between the business and the user is vital too.
MARKET ANALYSIS AND BUYER PERSONA
The key to building a great mobile app is knowing who your buyers are. If you are an established business, you would have sufficient data to understand who your buyers are and what their preferences are.
Analyzing their behavior and patterns helps you make key decisions for your app. This would help you create an app that is relatable to your potential customers.
COMPETITION ANALYSIS
Knowing your competition is necessary to create a business model that is exceptional. Extract a list of your competitors and study what they are doing. This does not mean that you have to copy their business model. This research would help you make better decisions about your business and extract the maximum out of the market.
APP TECHNOLOGY
Knowing all the necessary details about your business would help you make a well-informed decision about the technology to choose when developing the app. Keep an eye on your inventory and budget for the app development. Selecting the database, framework and back-end and front-end languages are also important.
Choosing between a hybrid or a native app would also help you make a better decision. Keeping in mind the devices that your shoppers use is also an important factor as it would help you choose whether to make an iOS app or an Android app or launch both at the same time.
DESIGN
The app design would be reflective of your brand image. Using color palettes that are an integral part of your brand ideology is the first step. The app UI and UX should enable smooth transitions from one app page to another.
Now that we’ve covered the basics of developing an app let’s move on to the features that an app should have:
SIMPLE REGISTRATION
Registration sounds simple but it is a very important factor for your shoppers. Making the process tedious and lengthy could hamper your conversion rates. Providing a simple, fun sign-up or registration process is essential for the app.
Give two simple options to login to your app: sign up and log in. For example in the below screenshot of
Lumosity, a brain training app, they have created an informative, simple login page:
SUPPORT FOR MULTIPLE PAYMENT OPTIONS
The app should provide support for multiple payment options. This feature is a must-have for all e-commerce apps and should be advertised prominently right on the home page.
By having multiple payment options integrated into your app, you’re leaving no room for any customer to be rejected solely on the basis of not having the right payment method. This increases conversions on the app in the longer run.
PUSH NOTIFICATIONS
Having push notifications enabled for your app is a great way to enhance sales and conversions. You can notify your customers about the latest products added, offers and discounts and flash sales through them.
This helps keep the customers informed about the product they care about and they keep coming back for more. Push notifications are a tool to provide opportunities to cross-sell and up-sell your products, but they need to be used wisely.
If overdone, the consumer can disable them in the settings or they can even get frustrated enough to delete your app altogether.
SOCIAL MEDIA INTEGRATION
As an e-commerce business owner, you’d be lying if you say that you do not want all of your customer’s attention. Even when they are using social media. Integrating social media into your app is a great tool that drives engagement, conversation and ultimately conversions on your website. Another great way would be incentivize the connection to social media.
Giving the users an option to share your app, website, or products on Facebook, pinning the posts on Pinterest or tweeting about your business is a great way to increase conversions.
A great example of this is by
Sophie & Trey where they have integrated their Instagram account on the homepage of the website. This gives the shoppers to follow the brand on social media driving engagement and sales.
OPTIMIZING BASED ON DATA
According to Kunocreative, the techniques and features mentioned above are nothing if not implemented in the right way. It is important to set up your analytics and optimize your website or app based on them.
Your sales funnel should be completely optimized and analysis should be done in order to understand where your customers drop off during your sales funnel. You should be able to optimize your sales funnel based on the data you have.
PRODUCT PHOTOGRAPHY, DESCRIPTIONS AND CLEAR CTAs
Adding visuals to your e-commerce app is a sure-fire way to increase conversions. As the shoppers cannot experience the product in its physical form, the pictures have to be at the best quality possible. A great product page example is by Walgreens.
As you can see below there is plenty of white space around the product which makes the focus of the shopper solely on the product. A clear CTA button is there and review options are available.
A well written product description is also essential. In this case,
Walgreens provides a detailed, well written product description.
WRAPPING IT UP
Using the above mentioned features and techniques would help you create a successful e-commerce mobile app for your brand or business. Keeping in mind the factors while creating the app by app development company can make a big difference in how users will react to your app.
Let us know your thoughts.
