According to recent study by Flurry, mobile application usage saw significant growth over the past year, with application usage overall up by an astounding 76 percent in 2014. It should be noted that Flurry defines app usage as users opening and actively engaging with an application.
While every app store category saw growth, the top app growth categories where: Shopping, Utilities & Productivity and Messaging. Meanwhile on the other side of the coin, growth has slowed some for the categories that were the strongest in the early days of mobile applications: Games, Music, Media and Entertainment categories.
Shopping apps were clearly the star of the show in 2014. Growth within the shopping category was larger than in any other category. Looking at iOS and Android combined the number of sessions in the shopping apps category increased by a phenomenal 174 percent in 2014 (Flurry).
More and more, users are not only just getting more comfortable with shopping from mobile devices but they are demanding better tools and experiences from mobile shopping experiences. Consumers today are comparison shopping, checking out coupons and offers, reading and writing reviews, engaging in social shopping, buying & reselling and more, all from their mobile devices.
With shopping apps becoming increasingly more popular it is important that you are creating exceptional experiences for your users or risk losing ground to your competition.
These 3 tips can help you improve your shopping mobile applications.
Focus on Content
Showcase your content rather than hiding it behind unnecessary flourishes and overstated branding elements. Don’t focus so much on superfluous design elements that the content takes a secondary role. Reducing clutter can improve the shopping experience as well as focusing attention on relevant content. Mobile application developers are improving user experiences all the time and can suggest cutting edge methods for presenting navigation in a clean fashion that doesn’t distract from the user experience.
Personalize
Smart phones are personal devices, which lend themselves to applications that allow user to personalize the application and its activities. Users are comfortable interacting with brands about individual preferences in order to improve their user experience; with this data you can create a tailored experience that increases engagement.
Leverage Technology
Don’t be afraid to integrate new technology into your mobile shopping app. Mobile wallets and iBeacons are examples of technologies you can utilize to improve the experience your customers have while on your application.
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It has become obvious to even the most casual observer that mobile is no longer considered a second screen by many consumers. Given the enormous growth of smart phone usage and improvements in mobile applications, it is easy to see why many feel that this trend that will only continue to accelerate.
Research backs up casual observation. According to a recent study by comScore, 56% of all time spent online by consumers engaged in retail activity in the U.S. takes place via a mobile device.
It seems that mobile no longer is the second screen in the minds of consumers.
Yet interestingly enough in 2014 only 16% of companies strongly agree that they are prepared to meet customers’ mobile expectations (CMO Council). There is clearly a great opportunity here for businesses willing to meet the needs of consumers.
Consumer expectations have changed, along with the way that they access and interact with information. Businesses have no choice but to adjust as well. The modern consumer cannot be expected to sit down at their computer to interact with a business or to finalize tasks there. Mobile applications must offer consumers the seamless, stand alone experiences that they are looking for.
Unfortunately, as the research suggests, far too many businesses view mobile the way many viewed web sites a decade ago, ignoring customer experience, personalization, analytics, location based features and many of the opportunities available due to mobile applications.
How does one take a mobile first approach?
Optimize for the form factor – Key to providing the mobile experiences that your customers are looking for is understanding the form factors of the mobile devices your customers are using and providing content in a format that is intuitive for your users to access at that size. Your users interact with mobile applications in particular ways and a mobile first approach carefully considers these items. Mobile application developers can help you understand trends in the industry and help you avoid creating an app with outdated style or functionality that runs counter to what mobile application users are used to doing.
Optimize content for your users needs – Additionally you must remember that mobile users are looking for content that is relevant and contextually meaningful. Personalization increase reliance and engagement.
Businesses looking to contact an Android application developer or an iPhone application developer should make sure that they are building applications for the future that take into account what users are looking for. This includes planning to deliver personalized shopping experiences to your customers on mobile devices in an intuitive fashion.
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Mobile-based rewards programs are incredibly popular right now. While people always love a bargain, the new economic reality is that consumers are now utilizing cost savings techniques like loyalty programs with greater and greater frequency.
According to Colloquy, U.S. consumers alone have over 3.3 billion memberships in customer loyalty programs, which is a sizable 26% increase over their last survey in 2013. In fact, according to their research the average American family has memberships in 29 loyalty programs.
Customers have come to expect loyalty offers from brands and may leave one to go to another that offers one.
Along with the overall growth of loyalty programs, mobile rewards programs have exploded in popularity and are expected to continue to do so. According to Forrester Research, consumers rank rewards high as a important element of mobile shopping. In fact, Forrester’s data showed 76% of consumers were interested in utilizing loyalty program points and rewards in a mobile digital wallet.
Choosing a mobile application developer that understand key touch-points with mobile loyalty programs can be helpful. As part of your mobile rewards strategy that you develop and implement with your iPhone application developer and Android application developer, make sure that you pay attention to how customers respond and optimize your program to meet your customer’s needs. With rewards programs its best not to take a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach but to tailor your program to your customer’s behavior and preferences.
What can a mobile loyalty program do for your business?
According to Harvard Business Review, loyalty programs can do 5 things for brands:
1. Keep customers from defecting
2. Win greater share of wallet
3. Prompt customers to make additional purchases
4. Yield insight into customer behavior and preferences
5. Turn a profit
How effective can rewards programs be?
When Kohl’s recently reviewed the effectiveness of their loyalty program they determined loyalty customers, made two extra trips to the store and spent $80 more per year. Keep in mind, as with everything in business, loyalty programs are not always successful. Building the right program and rewarding the right behaviors are critical for success.
The Small Business Administration blog gives this advice when it comes to loyalty programs, “Reward loyalty with some class. Freebies don’t always appeal to all and they can even de-value your services.” Furthermore suggesting, “Experiential rewards are always popular. For example, a hair salon could offer a monthly workshop that offers free makeover tips to loyal customers. These experiences add value to your customers’ lives, build community, help your business stand out and give customers reason to keep coming back.”
What are the key elements of a successful mobile rewards program?
Analytics & Data
To create a successful mobile loyalty program you will need to understand your customers. Make sure you plan ahead to make data available so you can review if your loyalty program is properly engaging your target audience. Data and analytics will also help you be able to personalize the experience for each customer over time.
Personalize the Experience
The more data you capture, the better you can target and customize the experience for each of your users. Personalization is important in building effective mobile user experiences and it is not different with mobile rewards programs. Personalization helps build loyalty and engagement. Data will help you optimize each user’s experience to their preferences.
Rewards & Exclusive Offers
Make sure you reward customers for the appropriate behaviors. Leverage their mobile device to track their shopping behavior, such as purchases, and offer rewards based on that behavior. Exclusive offers are also a powerful part of several strong loyalty programs as several retailers offer loyal customers priority access to exclusive products, offers and sales.
Customer Engagement
Utilizing tools such as push notifications have shown to increase response rates by up to 300%. Other contact methods such as e-mail and SMS can also play an important role in your customer engagement strategy. A key part of loyalty programs is re-engaging customers, doing so with a sense of urgency can be powerful so don’t be afraid to try time sensitive offers.
Leverage in-store experiences
Many successful mobile rewards programs link loyalty to in-store experiences by offering product information and more. The future of retails involves improving in-store experience with powerful mobile applications that can improve the shopping experiences for you customers.
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