Online trading platforms are fast overtaking the traditional market. Most retailers are offering online shopping experiences to their customers. However, it’s not enough to be just presented on the web.  

In recent times, the primary medium through which people make their purchases are e-commerce store applications. This is because they offer the most convenient means of making online purchases. Consumers are using their devices daily, and having a mobile app is a great opportunity for your business to grow. According to the Statista, over 31% of US sales are done via mobile devices and the conversion rate of mobile purchases is three times higher than from mobile websites. So, to stay on the edge it is essential to have a mobile application version of your eCommerce store. 

If you are a retailer or merchant, some of your priorities are improving your online presence, attracting more customers, and increasing profit. One of the ways to achieve this is to create an e-commerce app. This article will delve into the pros and cons of building e-commerce applications for retailers. We encourage you to read about how to build an e-commerce app that is nothing short of impressive according to Epam Anywhere Business.

Pros And Cons Of Building  E-commerce Applications For The Retailer 

The e-commerce industry is driven by technology, thus experiencing a transformation from physical stores into an online marketplace. Part of the transformation experienced by the industry is e-commerce mobile application development. Since the e-commerce apps market is growing fast, we will discuss the pros and cons of building e-commerce applications for retailers and give you some insights on the opportunities you might miss out.

Pros

Increase In Revenue Growth 

One of the reasons retailers need to create a mobile e-commerce app is to increase their revenues. Arguably, e-commerce apps assist in having better conversion rates, which leads to revenue growth. Retailers experience higher conversion rates because their mobile e-commerce apps allow their customers to enjoy a smooth purchasing process and experience. Therefore, you will attract new customers and increase revenue with your mobile app. 

It is known that mobile shoppers spend twice more on their purchases compared to other users. And 53% of smartphone users prefer to use a company application to make online purchases rather than the company’s website. Recent data shows that only 20% of mobile application users abandon their shopping cart during the purchase process, compared with 68% and 90% for mobile websites and desktop accordingly. Probably, here mobile applications win the competition since they allow you to make more personalized offers. 

The mobile app functionality allows you to update your consumers about promotions you are currently running, popular products, and so on. Using consumer data, you can make these offers more personalized as a result achieve better conversion rates. Also, push notifications are an excellent way not to stay annoying via email and will be more likely seen by your clients. 

Enhanced Customers Experience 

Using a website as the only means of interacting with your customers will not give them the personalized experience they desire. Neither will it give you the perfect results you want. Therefore, developing an e-commerce app for your business will persuade customers to make purchases consistently. Your customers will make purchases because you now offer them an optimized shopping experience on your e-commerce app. 

Moreover, in today’s digital world people spend less time browsing the internet or shopping via desktop (no matter PC or laptop), than via their smartphone or tablet. According to the research on smartphone usage, 90% of the time people spend on the applications and only 10% are using their web browser to find the information they need. So, having a mobile application for IoS and Android is an excellent idea to retain customers, and gain new ones if it becomes popular on the applications market. 

As we mentioned earlier the functionality of an application allows you to stay in touch with the client all the time. By slightly remaining them about the upcoming propositions, sales and various offers help to enhance their experience with your company. It works excellent during the holiday season when sales are booming and every customer needs to take care of presents for their beloved ones. Customized offers based on previous purchases might boost your sales during this time. 

Additionally, you may advertise your mobile application on the website, bringing your loyal customer base to the app. As a result, you might gain more information about your current clients and make their shopping experience even better. 

Increase In Brand Visibility And Recognition 

One of the major benefits of mobile app development for e-commerce is increased brand visibility and recognition. In addition, since maximum customers spend loads of hours on their phones, it becomes easier to connect and interact with customers through mobile apps. Recent surveys show that 78% of people will prefer accessing an eCommerce store via an application. 

Push notifications, built-in support, easy-to-navigate product pages, and many more can attract more buyers to your shop and allow you to win the competition. 

In addition, customers often write a review about your brand on social media when they get satisfied with your service or product. This acts as a golden chance to advertise your brand, improve your reputation, and attract potential customers. Adding share your review buttons and other functions might allow your application users to do all the marketing jobs for you. Everyone knows that people are about to trust consumer reviews rather than various online publications and ads. 

But you should be ready for online recognition. So, taking care of the presence on Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms is essential. Also, you might need to monitor other sources of information like Sitejabber, PissedConsumer, or Trustpilot, to make sure your clients are satisfied with their experiences on both desktop and mobile. 

Detailed Analytics 

Data analytics is very important for businesses to optimize their performances and make better decisions. Therefore, a retailer must collect and access data for various aspects of his business. E-commerce app development makes it easier to gather and track data in the app than on a website.  

From your eCommerce application, you might learn the location of your consumers, their preferences, age group, and even more. While developing an application you need to clarify what actual data you need to run your business and you can get permission to get these details at Google Play and App Store. 

Additionally, there is a bunch of tools allowing you to collect information about your application usage. It is possible to collect conversion rates and user behavior. Mobile apps allow you quickly to find the pain points of the design and correct them on the fly by updating your application. It was almost impossible to do this with an eCommerce website since the update of a platform required a lot of changes at the front end and back end that influenced the performance and might lead to more severe issues rather than basic usability ones. 

When among our sales tools were websites only we needed to spend a lot on setting up the software that might track every click or scroll customer has. There are numerous settings on Google Analytics and third-party installations. With eCommerce applications, the events like tap, double tap, etc., might be tracked easily. Moreover, registration of such an event might be done inside the application. With an eCommerce application, you might track every action customers make as a result provide them a better customer experience. 

Cons

Maintenance Cost 

Creating a mobile e-commerce app for your business has numerous benefits, whereas maintenance can be an issue. This is because mobile apps need loads of maintenance and support services. Mobile app maintenance involves improving existing features and services and making them meet customers’ expectations. 

Even if your customers love your app right away, you still have to test and update it continuously and fix bugs and glitches. Furthermore, you will have to push new features and make sure that it runs smoothly as new versions of Android and iOS come out often. For the majority of retailers, this could prove time-consuming and expensive.

Yet, if you are running a mobile application for your store, it’s an excellent idea to have an in-house or augmented team who can take care of all possible issues and improvements. With enchanted data analytics e-commerce applications provide you can easily find and fix all glitches and make sure your app provides the best possible experience. 

Higher customers expectations 

Customers nowadays are smarter. They expect their experience with your brand today won’t be the same as yesterday. That is why customers have higher expectations from you once you launch your e-commerce app. They always look forward to more personalization during their experience on your app. 

On most occasions, retailers strive to keep pace with the expectations of their customers. Unfortunately, most customers will leave your brand with a bad review when this happens. They will have no choice but to move to competitors with better e-commerce mobile applications.

Nevertheless, working out on mistakes and providing excellent customer care might solve this issue. As we mentioned earlier, the constant updates and improvements of the mobile application might help you to reach the expected results from your mobile app market presence. 

Low repeat usage rate 

The e-commerce market is getting more competitive. Retailers are doing everything possible to gain an edge over their competitors. Nowadays, they make mobile e-commerce apps with improved efficiency and better customer experience. This has led to the countless e-commerce apps available in the market. 

With the countless apps available today, customers have a wide range of e-commerce platforms to buy products. Due to this, it cannot be easy to engage customers and encourage them to use your mobile e-commerce app regularly.

Nevertheless, with the good service offering, support, and competitive pricing you can still retain more customers via mobile devices. Mobile applications are not the cure, it is a tool that allows you to widen your market and provide more personalized experiences users expect today. Make sure your application works fast, all features customers need are presented and you have an excellent product offering – all this together will definitely help you to grow your profit and compete on the applications market. 

Conclusion

This article has looked at the pros and cons of building e-commerce applications for retailers. Though it is hard to stay competitive in the eCommerce mobile applications market, the right application might widen your horizons and double your profit. Of course, there are a lot of challenges while running and promoting your application. 

Nevertheless, considering all the reasons mentioned above favoring the development of e-commerce applications for businesses, this move might change everything. Ecommerce applications are a great tool for building trust and engaging customers, and they provide features websites cannot supply you with.