The retail industry is one of the fastest-growing and most profitable sectors today. The retail industry includes manufacturers who manufacture goods and services and sellers, which could either be a company or individuals who sell these finished products to the consumers. According to Statista, total retail sales worldwide in the year 2020 was 23.36 trillion USD, and the figure is expected to reach 26.69 trillion USD by the end of the year 2022. In the same way as all the industries today have reaped mobile app technology benefits, the retail sector is investing heavily in mobile app development.
Mobile apps help customers to order goods and services easily from anyplace effortlessly in seconds. The same report from Statista showed that out of 23.35 trillion USD worth of sales in 2020, 4 trillion USD was generated through ecommerce retail sales. Four trillion represents a huge amount, and as most of us know, this revenue comes mainly through the medium of ecommerce mobile apps. In this post, we’ll discuss how mobile apps have transformed the retail sector for good in terms of the top benefits they offer to the industry. So, let’s move forward and look at some of the ways mobile app development is transforming the retail industry.
#1 To stay in the competition
Today, many individuals, a large part of it comprising youth, spend a significant amount of time online and mainly on some mobile app. According to a report, an average US adult was spending almost 2 hrs 15 mins on a smartphone, out of which 90% of the time is spent on mobile apps. The Covid-19 pandemic further boosted the number of hours people spend on smartphones and hence mobile apps. As per a report, 7.1B apps were downloaded in April 2020, when the covid-19 lockdown was imposed worldwide, and people were forced to stay inside compared to 5.4B in December 2019. Hence the given stats are enough to prove how important mobile apps have become these days.
Hence, it’s essential for any business to invest in a mobile app to stay in the competition and attract customers. As most customers today choose to stay indoors to be safe, they are heading to online retail platforms like Amazon, Walmart app, etc., to get the stuff they need. Hence for a retail business to attract more customers, it is advisable to build a mobile app and use effective marketing campaigns to boost the app’s visitors. Mobile apps have been proven as the best effective way to attract new leads. App development service seekers must check the list of top best service providers catalogued by Goodfirms.
#2 Boost sales through personalization and turn leads into customers
Personalization is the best tool to impress customers and provide better customer service. Personalization always helps increase sales by luring customers to buy goods and services by offering them attractive personalized offers and deals. Mobile apps integrated with email and social media marketing can help attract leads and turn them into actual customers. Retailers can ask developers to incorporate artificial intelligence technology into their apps.
AI is being used in almost every app nowadays, and one of the many reasons is that it helps boost personalization. AI tracks the potential customer’s buying history and searches made by them on the platform to devise the best-personalized offers for the item they want to purchase and have in their carts but refrain from buying. Personalization helps retail businesses compel existing customers to purchase and can help turn leads into customers by offering them fascinating offers based on their likes.
#3 Easier to locate physical stores through APIs
Every retail business’ mobile app comes with a special feature that helps their customers to locate the nearest store in their mobile app. This helps customers who want to visit the retail stores nearest outlet physically without any hassle. Also, various personalized offers can be devised based on the shopper’s location to lure them into buying the product they need from the nearest retail chain outlet. For this purpose, GPS technology needs to be integrated with the phone. Geolocation APIs that allow the app to read the user’s current location along with Map APIs like Google map APIs can help users to navigate their route to the nearest physical store. It is a must to integrate these APIs during mobile app development to make it easier for customers to visit your retail outlet.
#4 Keep the customers updated using push notifications
Your customers need to be kept updated regarding all the happenings in your store, including info about the upcoming sales, price cuts on certain items, specialized offers for the customer, etc. Customers can be kept updated using the push-up notifications facility in the mobile app. These push-up notifications ensure that your customers are constantly engaged in some way with your app. Push-up notifications act as a good way of boosting sales as they are the best medium for conveying new offers and deals to the customers.
#5 To ensure that the inventory is always fresh and full
Mobile apps for retail businesses can be so designed that they not only assist customers but also help the employees of the retail chain. There should be an app that notifies the concerned authority whenever a product is about to stock out from the inventory or whenever a product is not in demand and sits ideally in the warehouse. This helps the concerned employee to maintain the optimal stock level so that no product in-demand runs out. Also, the knowledge of products unable to get sold helps the authority make decisions regarding how to get them out of the warehouse. This can be done by selling them at lower prices by offering attractive discounts on them so that customers are compelled to buy the product. This way, the product doesn’t get wasted, and hence the company, on the other hand, faces a negligible loss.This ensures that inventory is always fresh.
Summing up
Mobile apps are proving to be a very useful tool for every industry in numerous ways. One such sector is the retail industry which is transforming rapidly with the help of mobile apps. Mobile apps help retail chains to attract customers, boost sales, improve customer retention rates and customer experience. In this post, we listed various ways in which mobile app development is influencing the retail industry. Amazon and Walmart are two retail businesses that have achieved great success thanks to their mobile apps, which help customers shop easily. It is highly recommended that all retail chains invest in a mobile app to stay in the competition and be successful.
Author Bio- Hi There, I am Shaun Williams, a content writer with Goodfirms, a research platform for Cloud Computing, Ecommerce companies, Translation services companies, among many others. I enjoy communicating ideas and knowledge creatively and also ensure that the readers never suffer from boredom while reading my posts.
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