Retail Apps: Your Secret Weapon Against Ecommerce Competitors

Ecommerce transformed traditional brick-and-mortar retail at the turn of the twenty-first century and altered the industry beyond recognition. Facing the threat of the ultimate disruption, retailers went online trying to balance two different business models—both offline and online retail. The integration proved to be a serious challenge, and online-first retailers still have a clear lead over the so-called brick-and-clicks in terms of online revenues and customer engagement. 

Now, mobile has clearly become the driving force in online commerce, propelling it to the next level. Consumers use their mobile devices in a variety of contexts: to make a purchase on the go, research products at home, or augment their in-store shopping. A mobile app can serve as a glue connecting all the channels and touchpoints into a seamless shopping experience.

This comes as no surprise then, that the revenue share of mobile commerce is aggressively expanding. By 2018, it has already reached almost 40% of all ecommerce retail sales, with no signs of subsiding. If the trend persists, we’ll see the mobile retail sales hit $270 billion in the US alone as soon as this year.  

Online store sales overcame those of general merchandise (including department stores) in the US for the first time ever in February 2019, which is why retailers should be pressed to revisit their agendas and to introduce circumspect mobile strategies. If implemented wisely, a mobile strategy could help physical stores mitigate their shortcomings and stress their advantages over purely online shopping.

However, given the significant costs of retail app development and the implications of retailers’ mobile strategies for their business and the industry in general, it is critical to recognize early on how to integrate a retail app into a broader customer acquisition and retention context. 

A mobile app, be it for customers, employees, vendors or any other stakeholders, also needs to be part of a holistic omnichannel strategy. The main goal of such mobile application development is to create a seamless shopping experience that leverages the retailer’s advantages and brand image.

This guide looks at why mobile should become the channel of choice for retailers looking to combat the surging competition from online-first businesses, including those employing social commerce. It also discusses the hands-on approach to successful custom retail apps development. 

Mobile apps can significantly increase in-store sales as well as come to the rescue in the face of staff shortages and work overload. 

A functional in-store digital assistant can augment shopping floor staff and relieve them of some burden, for example by: 

Walmart’s new Store Assistant app is one of such little digital helpers for the largest US grocery retailer’s customers. Introduced earlier this year, the app brings together all of the brand’s other in-store mobile solutions and offers a comprehensive list of value-adding features to shoppers. The app goes into ‘in-store mode’ automatically, with shopping lists, customer reviews, product search, and Walmart Pay all at the user’s fingertips. 

Mobile apps may be powerful tools for dragging online shopping audiences back into physical stores, but not all consumers find it convenient to shop using mobile devices. 

Retailers themselves might be the ones to blame for this. Consumers demand convenience, speed, security, and a personalized experience. Retail apps that do not meet these requirements are likely to be quickly abandoned or replaced.

 Here are the most common shortcomings impeding customer engagement that retailers should keep in mind when tackling mobile app development:

Sign-up forms that spill across multiple page and require too much personal information can make an unfavorable impression on a user from the very beginning. If, in addition to that, an app requests numerous permissions, it can raise a user’s suspicion and impair engagement. 

On the contrary, a chance to test an app and gauge its value prior to signing-up can substantially increase the app adoption rate.

The failure to consider mobile display limitations and cut the clutter will inevitably compromise the convenience and ease of navigation. Such poorly designed apps nudge users into switching to retailers’ websites in the best-case scenario. In fact, more than half of the consumers who are reluctant to use retail apps prefer shopping online via retailers’ websites.

With the limited mobile real estate, it becomes even more acute to laser-cut product catalogs into sections with easy-to-navigate product categories. These could be then drilled down to the user’s perfect find with a selection of search filters. 

In 2019, you can’t overlook voice search either. Incorporating one into your mobile app browsing experience can minimize user effort and shorten the path to the product discovery.  

Erratic navigation and the lack of consistency in screen layouts, action elements and patterns in a retail app would compromise both convenience and speed. Furthermore, the lack of consistency in UI design across every digital channel would only make consumers spend more time learning how to navigate the app.

One of the biggest issues in mobile commerce is the high level of cart abandonment. Complicated multi-page checkout, where customers need to fill out poorly designed forms and enter their personal details every time, might discourage them from completing purchases via the app.

Treating all customers, even within their shared segment, like the same person, is a mistake that inevitably puts off shoppers craving personalized experiences. 

To enable such personalization in their mobile apps, retailers are advised to build the apps into unified back-office systems with all the digital tools sharing the same version of truth on every customer. This approach would further enable a truly omnichannel journey, where customers can start browsing isles in a physical store, research more about the product while at it, yet complete their purchase via the online version of the store—all while being recognized and served accordingly at each of these touchpoints.

Security assurance is key to customer engagement as security concerns are ranked among the top mobile shopping roadblocks. This comes as no surprise, given the regular newsflashes about retailers being attacked by cybercriminals.

As revealed in the 2019 KPMG Consumer Loss Barometer, apps specifically remain the top technology that 78% of the surveyed consumers fear to be compromised. When it comes to business executives meeting these consumers halfway, however, there is a major disparity in both parties’ expectations. 

To fix this, retail app owners should pay extra attention to ensuring data security at each step of the transaction, in order to avoid losing a big chunk of their customer base to an occasional data breach. 

User acquisition is the last yet not least important aspect to consider when launching a mobile retail app. No matter how well-stuffed with useful features the app is, these features won’t compensate for the lack of potential users’ awareness. 

The task of marketers more than anyone else’s, user acquisition strategies should be developed to communicate the various benefits that such apps bring to the table via the channels where the prospective users are most likely to find this information. 

The takeaway? To replenish your retail app development team with business analysts and marketers who understand your customers’ mentality like their own, and can put these insights to use.