Retail businesses have witnessed major shift in the purchasing pattern of the customers from e-commerce to m-commerce, mostly because of the popularity of smartphones.
The existence of e-commerce will never fade but the launch of mobile commerce has given a businesses a new platform to get connected to their customers. This innovation has certainly added value to both businesses and customers.
Both the platforms aim at simplifying the shopping experience of the user. If we put it in simple words, e-commerce empowers retail businesses to sell their products on an online platform while m-commerce is an extension that boosts sales by letting the customers shop from their mobile phones.
Even though both platforms work towards achieving the same objectives, there are a couple of dissimilarities between the two which we will talk about in our first segment.
Differences between M-Commerce & E-Commerce
By now we all understand that both e-commerce and m-commerce platforms functions on the same basic theory. Mobile commerce just offers extended benefits to customers more than the business, eventually helping businesses to gain more profit through this platform. Let’s see how:
#1- Easy Tracking
Mobile apps occupy a major share of the m-commerce market. Some of these apps we use in our daily lives, also give us an insight of the delivery of our product. For instance: Zomato and Uber Eats enable the users to track down the delivery of the food we order through GPS and mobile internet.
Additionally, a couple of mobile apps enable users to view location-specific content that helps users to make their decision. Customers using these apps can find their favorite restaurants, book store or more because of this feature.
#2- Flexible Shopping
E-commerce websites became a popular shopping centre because of the comfort and the convenience they provided to the user. People could just sit at their desktop/laptops and order products online.
If this is convenience, imagine the comfort that mobile shopping has extended to people around the world. M-commerce has eliminated the difficulty of carrying a laptop or sitting on a system to browse through e-commerce websites. Customers can be travelling, walking or even working while they enjoy shopping on their mobile phones through mobile apps.
#3- Enhanced Security
While some of us have become more open to giving out our credit card details on e-commerce websites, a few of us still hesitate when it comes to jotting down those important card number to make payments. There are certain countries in the world that don’t even require the security number or a One Time Password while shopping online.
M-commerce provides enhanced security to the customers through retina scans, face-ID before the payment is finally made. This multi-tier authentication is an added security other than regular security measure that m-commerce follows to make the customers feel more secure.
The added benefits of M-Commerce
We now understand the basic difference between e-commerce and m-commerce. Some of us are still itching to see if investing in a mobile app will add value to the business. Let’s see how:
#1- Build personalised relationship with your customer
A lot of businesses have enjoyed their journey from e-commerce to mobile apps, majorly because there is greater possibility of staying connected to the customer at all times. Some of these businesses have made a great use of push notification to motivate the customers to engage with their apps on a regular basis. This is a great way of reaching out to the customers with latest offers, eventually bridging the gap between the two parties.
#2- Get more opportunity to capture customer’s attention
Grabbing customer’s attention through a mobile app is much easier in comparison to websites. A customer is most likely to check the products on a website if he/she really needs it, but apps makes the customer want to buy it. The fact that mobile phones stay with everyone at all times during the day, gives each business enough opportunity to capture customer’s attention. A little glance on your mobile app may lure your customer to open it and view all your wonderful products.
#3- Improvise the shopping experience of the customers
We already understand how convenient it is for the customers to shop on their mobile phones if you have dynamic mobile app. To enhance customer’s convenience, some of the businesses are also going to the extent of offering 24*7 support. Customers love attention, especially if it is personalised.
Your customers will keep visiting your app regularly if you offer them great products and excellent UI through your app. Let them see their history, products that are related to their search results and chatbot that instantly responds to their query.
#4- Reduce the cost of marketing your products
If you are a part of the retail industry, building an e-commerce website is not enough. There are certain guidelines from Google that you must follow in order to improve the visibility of your app, which can take months. However, mobile apps can open up many channels for businesses to showcase their products in a very low cost. Presently, a lot of businesses have been using app builder online that requires very low investment and can help in building an app within a week.
Mobile commerce is not just a trend, it is development in the e-commerce industry that is here to stay. Most businesses have adapted to its change and are making more revenue through its popularity. It will be right to say that businesses who are not following the league are missing on a lot of opportunity.
If you are not ready for a big investment, you can always explore options for a good app builder that can help you convert an e-commerce website to app. These app builders are helping small scale businesses to have a dedicated app for their business. If you are wondering if these app builders are good enough, you can always read up reviews online to see if businesses have benefitted with this option. If you too, are looking for something similar, you can always try the woocommerce app builder with appmysite.com