Has mCommerce Crossed the Stage of Being Just an eCommerce Subset?

There was a time when mobile commerce solutions were considered to be an extension of the ecommerce domain. The ecommerce websites were converted into responsive applications with little to no difference in terms of user experience. 

However, with the growing advent of mobile apps, a clear distinction has been drawn between ecommerce and mcommerce. This event, in turn, has brought m commerce solutions on the industry’s evolution chart. 

Even after creating a distinct place in the retail industry, there is still some confusion around the difference between ecommerce and mcommerce. The reason is that when you look at mobile commerce applications closely, you will note that there is not much difference between it and its superset. The end goal of both is the same – getting people to buy things. 

However, the mcommerce sector, at the back of its specific benefits, is proving to be at a superior position than ecommerce. 

A validity of this statement can be seen in the increasing share of mobile in the y-o-y ecommerce spend and the rising demand for mobile commerce development agencies. 

Before we go on to look into the features that make having a mobile commerce strategy a better proposition for businesses, let us look at the benefits that the sector comes with – ones that bring it steps ahead in the mcommerce vs ecommerce discussion . 

Benefits of mCommerce Over eCommerce

Nowadays, people are having a very common myth of understanding Mobile commerce just an extension of e-commerce. With time, M-Commerce is creating hype and becoming the essential part of businesses. Essentially, success of m-commerce depends on the alliance of three key factors – technology advancements, new innovations, and emergence of a new value chain for meeting active customers demand. 

Mobility 

All the e-commerce activities are performed over laptops and computers having active internet connections. The devices were once marveled at but today have taken a backseat. And why not. After all, won’t you feel it an additional step to switch your laptop on, wait for a good net condition, open an ecommerce website and purchase an item that you saw on a television ad? 

The benefit of mobile commerce development over ecommerce application development lies in the speediness that the former provides and how it is best suited for impulsive shopping. 

Push Notifications

The next big advantage of a mobile commerce design is the ease of sending reminders to the buyers to both shop for new items or purchase their in-cart products. From a retailer point of view, an effective push notifications strategy is one of the main sources of income.

The chances of closing the sale is much higher in case of push notifications compared to any other marketing source – making mcommerce a better choice compared to ecommerce. 

GPS Tracking 

The only customer information that an ecommerce brand gets is that of the customers’ IP address. But an mcommerce company gets information around users’ location, the places they visit, time they spend there, etc. This, in turn, increases the chances of proximity marketing by manifold. 

One of the benefits of it can be seen in beacon-based marketing wherein brick-and-mortar retail houses are able to send notifications to users in their vicinity straight on the mobile device. You might also want to check the Top 10 eCommerce app features for startups and enterprises 

All of these benefits together has been rising the mCommerce volume in the US to a new level

Now that we have looked into the benefits that mcommerce has in the ecommerce vs mcommerce debate, let us look into the factors that make mobile commerce app development the future of retail. 

Factors Behind mCommerce Industry Success

The basic requirements to build viable and bespoke ecommerce solutions, whether in terms of a mobile application or a website, have become more popular than ever. By leveraging the basic principles of M-Commerce strategies, you can be an  e-commerce application developer expert in a matter of hours. Let’s take a look on the key factors that must be considered to design valuable m-commerce applications. 

{Read More: Future of Mobile Commerce: Stats & Trends to Know in 2020-2025}

1. Append Breakthrough Navigations and Interfaces

An application that is not user-centric and is difficult to use, whether it’s due to indigent user interface or torpid performance, will be generally discarded or becomes a fugitive memory. Poorly designed apps are exiled eternally to the growing graveyard of apps on both Android and iOS. A highly customized app ensures the easy navigation setup of your app tailored to users’ needs. This is the reason why we refrain from making a responsive ecommerce website compared to working on ecommerce mobile app development.

To get breakthrough navigation and interface, your design pattern needs to have adjustable fonts, customized image sizes, and tailored number of displays per page. And, to make it more user-centric, the overall navigation options should always be available at the tip of the fingers to prevent users from getting lost while browsing your online store.

2. Make Online Buying Easy

While going through your app, purchasing a product should only require a click – to know a desire to purchase, to indicate a product enticing the user’s interest, to get the option where the user can get the tailored information, and obviously, the checkout button. 

A user-centric app always includes these quick and easy options to help users quickly locate what they are looking for. Any deviation that creates hindrance to potential customers throughout their online purchasing process may result in chances of switching over to the next app.

Bonus Read- How can M-Commerce Apps Lower their Cart Abandonment Rate

3. Embrace the Power of Analytics

For any business customer retention plays a crucial role. So, you shouldn’t always spend all of your effort and attention on new shoppers. For increasing customer retention a comprehensive and robust analytics can help like Flurry. 

Through a pioneering and detailed analytics you can get a detailed analysis of new and existing customers including their demographics, age, source etc. And, that will help you in adopting the targeted product approach and defining your product marketing strategy like reward programs or loyalty points.

4. Adopt Proper Monetization Approach

Monetization plays a crucial role in the success of any app. But advertisements like videos and pop-ups aimed to market an e-commerce application can prove to be an inappropriate marketing strategy. You can opt for Tenuous and palliative advertising tabs that frequently line the bottom of a checkout or shopping cart page. Advertisements that are not sound may result in large drains on data and will certainly end up with rapid app removal and will be left out entirely.

5. Security Is the King

Your app security should never be compromised. Ensure properly that all your financial, personal and professional data that passes through your application are secured. Being a responsible development partner, you need to ensure that the app and other services – including Cloud infrastructure or software – are secured. 

And, if a data breach occurs it may result in deprived information security sources. And, your e-commerce app may become an oppressive and nagging mark that can certainly damage your return on investment.

Be creative. Be innovative. And, be passionate for what you do. By following the above mentioned factors and by choosing the mobile app development partner, get your best-in-class mCommerce app developed but the key to success would be to mcommerce app development company.

THE AUTHOR

Saurabh Singh

CEO & Director