How have Mobile Apps Improved the Retail Industry?

The world retail landscape has witnessed great improvements since the launch of shopping mobile apps. Like all other sectors of the economy, retail too has deployed good quality mobile applications for benefitting the target customers by keeping in constant touch, answering all their queries, taking their feedback on designs and services provided, and offering a wider range to choose from. In a busy lifestyle of today’s there is a huge section of people who prefer online shopping to taking a tour around marketplaces. Let us take a look at how mobile apps have transformed and improved the retail experience of modern shoppers:

1. They provide additional information on products and services – When a mobile customer browses through different sites for shopping, they can gather more information about a particular than is possible even by visiting shops. Therefore, it enables the customer to compare similar products of different brands before taking the decision to buy any particular item. The reason why most brands allow online shopping these days is because only limited information can be made available to a customer from the packaging or listing of a product. Customizable mobile apps make it possible to share additional information, allow the user to save the product for future purchase, and sometimes also ask for the user’s feedback on quality of service.

2. The benefit of winning incentives, offers, and promotions – Most stores introduce online campaigns in the form of sales and giveaways in order to drive more customers to use their products and services, thus ensuring that a certain group of buyers become loyal fans of their brand. Most stores follow a sales policy of ‘mobile only promotions and offers’. This means that only customers who conduct shopping online are entitled to winning exclusive deals. In reality, shoppers who access mobile apps of stores end up spending lesser amount of money when compared to shoppers who visit the actual stores.

3. Integration with media platforms – Videos and photos are the most engaging aspects that influence the purchase decisions of a shopper. While most people fail to browse through the entire collection of a store’s products due to lack of time, they can easily check photos and videos of the same products on their mobiles while they are travelling or working. Advertisers and businessmen have repeatedly pointed out the fact that showing is a more effective method of selling a product than telling. While mobile apps showcase various features, a store assistant may only be able to explain a part of them in a limited time period.

4. Sharing on social media platforms – Word of mouth is an essential aspect of successful marketing. Promotion of services and products on sites like Twitter and Facebook is very important to raise awareness on the store or the brand. Moreover, only by integrating a store with social media platforms with the help of mobile apps can businessmen expect to raise sales through recommendations by users to an extended group consisting of friends and family members. Developers of the store apps must however remember to include engaging information regarding the services and sales details in order to generate a wider audience base.

The above discussion is proof of the fact that mobile apps have augmented the retail experience of a modern day shopper. Therefore, both businessmen and customers should connect using retail mobile applications.