The modern-day retail is using complex technologies where consumers experience new and engaging retail innovations, as they shop. The modern retail is no longer limited to in-store purchase.
Introduction of mobile apps in retail has become an important driver for boosting customer loyalty and offering customers multiple choices of products based on the AI personalised feed for rich shopping experiences. The recent outbreak of COVID-19 has given more reasons to adopt technology innovations to those still using traditional retail techniques. Leaders in the industry like Spencer’s who were earlier not fully making use of mobile technology for home delivery models are now empowering users to make a purchase online. So, it’s clear one big potential lies in Mobile technology.
In this article, We will explore the role of mobile apps in changing the face of retail, encouraging personalised shopping experiences for consumers worldwide.
Introduction of Mobile Apps in the ever-changing landscape of retail.
1. Integrating AI for personalized Experience
AI-enabled mobile applications offer a personalized and relatable customer experience. AI empowers brands to communicate with its audience based on user behaviour, buying patterns, interests, location and more. Brands like Amazon check user flow which shows how a user interacted with an app from browsing to the checkout stage and trigger push notifications or in-app reminders at any stage of drop-out. Not just this, seeing the browsing pattern, AI apps offer related product recommendations based on the type of content they view.
Mobile App Technologies opens up opportunities that allow shoppers to find products they need offline and online and buy alternates with the desired one is out of stock. AI apps reduce cases of customer switching to your competitors.
2. Keeping Customer Updated with Notifications.
Mobile apps keep users updated of the brand recent launch, sale or any event changes. Instant notifications are a new form of communication that provide valuable information to the user every day. Notifications give a one-to-one conversation experience where the company is directly informing its customers about the events. It assures the authenticity of the information shared to a specific set of audience. For instance - A unique set of audience who like Green jacket receives the offer.
There are two types of notifications: push and in-app notifications for marketing. Push notification is the notification user receives on the notification bar regardless of activity on a smartphone. Push notifications stay in the notification bar till the user read it. While In-App notifications are notifications which users will receive once they have opened an app.
Both the methods are great to communicate to customers instantly without worrying about the message being missed by them.
3. Customer Support with Chatbots
Merely selling a product once does not guarantee long-term business success. Thus, every company work on building a relationship with its customers. The part of the process involves clearing their doubts related to product & services and providing custom solutions. Chatbots for retail companies enhance their customer experiences with their human-like conversations. A chatbot process customer services request faster than ever.
Retailer apps that contain live chat drive customer engagement and stay ahead of the competition.
4. Increase conversion rates
A customer who has a rich shopping experience is more likely to convert and repurchase than who struggled to navigate to desired products in a few clicks. App smoothens the process of browsing to proceeding to checkout. Thus, mobile apps have a great degree of conversion rate. A survey revealed that 69% of customers prefer to review a product on their phone than speak with an in-store sales rep. Also, Mobile dominates in both the number of visits and time spent online, represents almost ⅔ of digital media minutes and 50% of searches happen on mobile.
5. Better data Analytics
Retail commerce apps provide brands with better consumer data of the entire purchase process. In a traditional retail setting, a customer looks for product, purchase and leave the store. mStore use machine learning to understand what colour of pants user like, what type of product he looks for and how he likes to make the payments. Unlike a user leave the store without buying anything, mStore provide a data at which step user left the Store App so the marketers can analyse the data to make a better offer pitch.
6. GeoLocation
Modern mobile devices are equipped with third-party access that allows to track user location for commercial purposes.By using device location apps can navigate users to the nearest stores and provide them with highly valuable offers of a store via push notifications. For example, IKEA’s app allows customers to navigate to the products they need easily.
This app feature provides tailored experiences even in the stores and provides the best custom offers to convert customers.
7. Multiple payment methods
Many smartphone users prefer shopping online because mstores provide multiple payment methods. One-touch mobile payments simplify the checkout process. With the development of mWallets, online transactions have become even simpler. The secure gateways further assure repurchase.
Apps also encourage sharing on social media, and people love sharing new amazing purchases with their friends.
All in All, mobile app technology helps deliver the complete experience. The app for retail industry has made shopping experience simpler and purchases faster. It has given control to customers and business both. Customers can easily browse, purchase, track and return orders while businesses learn what their customers prefer and what to offer them.
