Nowadays, the average adult spends 73.8 hours a month on various apps on their smartphone. Almost anything is now done online. We have all seen Amazon grow exponentially in a short period, with various retail and electronic companies opening stores on the website. This year, the trend has shifted. Retailers have also started to develop their own retail apps and sell directly to their customers. Medium-sized retailers have also started to capitalize on this phenomenon. If you’re a medium-sized company looking to expand your market reach, but are unsure of whether you should, here are 10 reasons you need to create a retail app.
Wider reach
A retail app puts your business in the virtual map, so more people can see your store. This way, you can sell your product and increase your brand awareness beyond your home city. If you have the resources, you can even extend to other countries. Having a wider reach could eventually translate to wider market share, and therefore higher revenues.
Increased scalability
Scaling up in the retail business is a risky and costly endeavor. Smaller businesses often take years to expand because of the costs, in addition to potentially stronger competition. With retailing apps, however, smaller businesses can expand more quickly without shelling out too much or risking their investment. If you’re looking to expand your business, why not start with developing your own retailing app?
Convenience
Here is how having a retail store app makes selling and shopping more convenient:
Accessible and organized product information.
Customers nowadays prefer reading product descriptions and specifications on their phone than talking to a sales associate, who sometimes don’t have thorough knowledge of the products. Checking the product online helps them make a decision more quickly. Keep in mind that this will only work if your product write-ups are well-written. For this, it’s best to consult with expert writers from Custom Essay Meister.
Efficient and time-saving.
Online shopping is much more time-saving for your customers since they will no longer need to step out of the house to buy your products.
Apps are easier to navigate.
Retailer mobile apps are easier to navigate than websites because they’re specifically tailored for mobile phones. Products are thus easier to find and it’s easier to order. In addition, customers are less likely to make errors with their order or payment or delivery details.
Keep track of your inventory.
On the retailers end, you can connect your retail mobile application to a point of sale system so every time a customer buys from your app, your inventory is automatically updated. You will no longer need to constantly count your inventory and maintain spreadsheets.
B to C sales.
Retailing apps remove middlemen (i.e. marketplaces) and lets you transact with your clients directly. You have full control of how the transaction takes place and you don’t need to rely on a third party to handle your inventory and then wait for payout. In other words, there is faster ROI for your inventory.
Increase customer engagement
Whether you use push notifications or in-app notifications, you will be able to establish better engage clients with a retailing application. Notifications from mobile apps have been found to have higher percentage open rates. An app is an effective way of informing your clients of upcoming or new products. Plus, you can also tell your products about deals and other campaigns.
Improve shopping experience with customer reviews
The first 3 reasons all contribute to good shopping experience, however another way to improve it is through customer reviews. A lot of customers prefer to read other people’s thoughts and experiences with a product. Reviews are more effective at encouraging customers to buy a product than a sales pitch.
Increase client loyalty
Customers tend to return to a shop when they are loyalty members because of the loyalty rewards. Loyalty rewards can range from informing them of upcoming deals to offering them loyalty discounts. The retail industry has been using loyalty programs to increase customer retention, but your very own retail app will make it easier to inform your loyal customers of the loyalty rewards and deals.
Retail apps are addictive
Once you get customers to download your app, it’s close to smooth sailing from there. A survey conducted by shopify revealed that of the 86% of respondents who use a retailing application, 59% use it up to 5 times a week. This is definitely great marketing and higher chances of sales.
Get insights on customer behavior
Insight into customer behavior is indispensible in online business. They rely on customer behavior to determine their preferences and needs. You can make your app more responsive to your customers’ needs and improve overall shopping experience.
Get effective analytics
Retailing apps also helps keep track of real-time sales data. This kind of data is invaluable in crafting marketing strategies. By telling you which products are selling and which ones are not, you can predict trends and plan on deals to offer.
Boost sales
Naturally, this is one of the reasons. No retail business would venture into developing retail store apps for android or retail store apps for IOS if it weren’t productive. With convenience and overall better shopping experience in its belt, eRetail can help increase your sales.
Overall, retailing apps are great for both customers and retailers. Depending on how you design your app, you can reach different demographics regardless of what products you sell. Ultimately, these 10 reasons you need to create a retail app we enumerated here culminate to increased sales, which is why all business experts recommend that retailing apps are a good investment.
