We live in a world where smart phones have become extremely ubiquitous. This is the chief reason for businesses to offer services on a move, through apps and responsive websites.
Offering services on a mobile phone is no longer a luxury, it is a necessity. E-commerce business particularly, must understand the prominence of making themselves available on a mobile device.
In this post, we will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the both the platforms. Let’s get started:
Responsive website
Most e-commerce store owners already have a website that is responsive and works well on a mobile device browser. Now, we are here to find out if it is possible to sustain on responsive website only. Let’s look at the advantages first:
- Small online business go with responsive website because it is within their means. Besides being more affordable, the development of a mobile site takes considerably lesser time as compared to mobile apps. Additionally, the cost of maintaining an app is higher than a mobile site. Since this technology is cross platform, companies don’t have to burden themselves with publishing them on different app store or develop them for multiple operating systems.
- Without spending too much money, it is possible to provide the comfort of shopping online on a mobile device through mobile websites. This platform is nearly as accessible as a mobile app is. The added advantage is that you don’t have to download it like a mobile app.
- Like we said, even though you don’t spend too much money, you are still receiving a lot of traffic from potential customers. Users can simply find you on browser and visit your website on their browser and also share it through a simple URL.
We discussed some fairly good reasons for e-commerce stores to only stick to responsive website. Let’s talk about their shortcoming too:
- Unlike apps, responsive websites are very limited to user experience. Since they need a robust internet speed to run smoothly, downloading a page can be a nightmare if your internet is a little slow. The features too, are very limited as compared to apps. For instance: once customers leaves your mobile site, there is no way of reaching out to them directly which you can easily do with apps.
- The possibility of a customer coming to a mobile website is much lower than a shopping app. Most times customers forget the name of the website they once visited. This is one of the prime reasons for lower conversion rates on a mobile site.
- Before completing a transaction, most customers abandon their cart. Prominently, customers don’t feel comfortable sharing their credentials each time they place an order with you. If they process can’t uninterrupted, the customers are more likely to get frustrated.
E-commerce app
Mobile apps have expanded their market globally over the past few years. Can the reason for their popularity be the vast pool of benefits they embrace? Let’s talk about the pros of shopping apps:
- Research studies have proven that an average person spends over 80 percent of his/her time on an app and only 10 percent on a mobile site. This clearly explains that customers prefer spending time on a mobile app over a mobile site.
- Once you get a customer onboard, the chances of gaining their loyalty is much higher as compared to mobile sites, which a customer may not even remember after shopping for once. Apps are a better solution for customer loyalty.
- The seamless user interface that you can offer on a mobile cannot be compared to mobile site. A host of features that apps extend increases the time a customer spends on the app. Additionally, apps have an excellent UI that allows user to effortlessly navigate to any page and see more relevant products in lesser time.
- Shopping apps overcome the problem of abandoned carts. The stunning user experience helps in building brand recognition and trust among customers, which multiplies the conversion rate significantly.
- Businesses can offer a more personalised shopping experience to the customers with an app. If your app allows customers build their profile by adding their shipping address, name, email ID, mobile number and profile image, they can save time every time check out.
It is easier for businesses to have customers hooked to their apps because of the exceptional user experience they offer. However, we will not deny that shopping apps come with a few disadvantage too. Have a look:
- The most challenging job after developing an app is persuading people to download it. Even if your app can be downloaded at zero cost, building trust among people can be extremely tricky. If you don’t have a solid marketing strategy in place, your mobile app can be a failure too.
- Developing a mobile app can dig a hole in your pocket, especially if you are a small business. Whether you hire a freelancer or a app development company, the cost will be much higher than you evaluate. Additionally, it can take months to build a decent mobile app. AppMySite is a reliable online app creator, that instantly delivers a full blown mobile app.
- The pain of selecting the right platform to develop your shopping app can be excruciating, especially if you don’t have a technical background. Some businesses build hybrid apps because of low cost of development and are never happy with the performance. Building a native app can be an expensive affair which you can easily overcome by signing with AppMySite that turns website into app on a native platform.
Conclusion
Ideally, it is important that businesses have the best of both the worlds. If you have a website then there is no reason why you shouldn’t make it responsive and make it mobile friendly.
You can always tap unique customers through your mobile site. You can pitch these unique customers to download your mobile app and treat as an additional marketing channel.
Mobile apps have been the vogue for a long time now, and they are certainly here to stay. Build your mobile app to create a community of loyal customers for increased revenue and brand awareness.
The main disadvantage of building a mobile app is the hefty investment. You can easily rise above this problem by going with AppMySite’s WooCommerce App Builder. You can build your app at zero cost in a code free environment. Once you are happy with the look and feel of the app, you can test the functionality on a real device and upgrade to a paid plan to publish the app on Apple App Store or Google Play Store.
Build a full-blown mobile app that looks incredible but still perform wonderfully. AppMySite uses native environment to create app which means that they offer excellent user experience and a host of features.