Category: Mobile Commerce

Having a strong mobile strategy is very crucial for an eCommerce business to win in this tough & competitive market. Retaining, gaining, winning customers and improving its cost efficiency is another crucial point for the growth of the business. By 2018, the mobile app market will grow $61 Billion. Many companies have still not been able to establish what kind of an app they want for their business. So the most important question you need to ask is what kind of an app they are looking for – a customized mobile app or an off the shelf app (SaaS).

Custom apps are more in demand for many reasons such as it is personalized as per your business requirements. These are targeted towards a specific group or audience whom you wish to sell your products or services. You must have features are directly available. Check a few reasons why custom apps are preferred over off-the-shelf apps (SaaS).

Customized Apps

Not all companies will give you the privilege to customize your apps. If you want to target a particular kind of audience then only customized apps will give you this feature. There may be a possibility you might want changes in the apps as per your customer’s and business requirements, this is not possible in the off-the-shelf apps. There may be instances when you want some different customization that all will not provide, at that time you will need to move to another mobile commerce app builder software. Instead of choosing off the shelf app (SaaS) builder choose customized ones.

Ownership of the Product

Opting for custom apps gives you the ownership of the product. This one benefit is not given to the off-the-shelf app owners. This gives you the liberty to update your app as per the market’s current needs. This can be a bigger reason for the success of your app.

Personalized Experience

User Interface (UI) of an app is of great importance as it affects the app experience of the user or the user experience (UX). You can ask for customization in the UI of the app as per your business needs when you choose the custom app development company. You can also build your app either on Magento Plugin or PrestaShop Module. You can tailor the UI, test it, and then authenticate it to ensure it meets your customer’s expectations. It also helps in enhancing user engagement and retention programs. This also ensures that your users are going to use this for a longer period. If provide your customers with a consistent and flawless experience with personalization then customized apps are your answer.

Long-Term Future Development

It is a challenge to develop an app keeping in mind that it will work for long term. All successful apps need some changes depending on the demands and customer behavior. While investing in an app make sure it addresses all your current and future needs, and this feature will not be available with the off-the-shelf apps. If your app does not allow extensibility then there is no use of investing in such a big thing. Technology has been invented to ease your work not make it difficult. Choosing a custom app ensures long-term stability in the market.

Compatibility

Your app has to be compatible with different devices. If your app is not compatible then you will lose the customers who are on different devices. You can choose which devices you want your app to be compatible with when you plan to develop it. Hopping devices has become the new trend hence have a multiple device compatible app will ensure your users stay loyal to you.

Conclusion

Developing app does require an investment and lot of time. If you want your app and business to be a success then you must ensure that you opt for a custom mobile app development company with best prices and features. Though there are many still using the off-the-shelf app, the demand for custom apps is more. They meet the needs and requirement of the business and the customers giving profitable results.

For any eCommerce business, a payment gateway is their gateway to success. Of course, it is a huge thing that a visitor explores your online store, add products to the shopping cart and reaches your payment gateway but the real happiness for any e-commerce mobile app or store owner lies in when the visitor actually buys the product and turns into a customer. Hence it can be said that the real success of an online business depends on the conversion rate.

Now, for the conversion rate to increase, it is important that customers buy things from your e-commerce portal. But unfortunately, it happens that a majority of potential customers abandon the shopping cart when it comes to the payment. Reason? Not enough trust in sharing their precious financial details. For them to make the purchase you must gain their trust first by providing them with a good payment gateway showing that it is safe, certified and how much you value their privacy.

By getting an efficient and secure payment gateway integrated by an online e-commerce store app builder in your portal, you will not only build trust in your customer’s mind but will gain a reduction in the rate of abandoned carts. UAE is a shopping spree country and the e-commerce sales in it alone has reached approximately ten billion U.S. dollars in 2018. Nearly 135 e-commerce websites are operating in the UAE and 63% of them actually make online purchases. For such an e-commerce crazy nation, here are the tops 5 eCommerce payment gateways in UAE according to us. Before that, we are highlighting some factors to keep in mind while choosing the payment gateway.

Choosing the aptest and right Payment Gateway is very important for any online business. Take enough time to decide on which one to choose for your portal.

Factors to keep in mind while choosing the payment gateway

Security

The first and the foremost thing that customers look for when they make an online payment which cannot be compromised upon. You have to ensure that the payment gateway you have integrated on your portal is safe & secure. It should be able to protect all banks, cards and transactions details of the customers. It must have a 3D secure function.

Fees

A very important factor to discuss before you decide upon a payment gateway. Make sure with your online eCommerce store app creator that there are no hidden charges that will kill your profit later. Some gateways charge fees per transaction while others have a monthly subscription. Choose the one that best fits your budget.

Customer support

If you are providing 24/7 support for your online store, then why not a customer support for payment gateways too? Ensure a payment gateway with good customer support that can solve the queries of your customers instantly over a call or via email.

Multi-Currency Support

It is very important that your payment gateway support multiple currencies in online business. There is a possibility of a global demand for the product, so if you have multiple currency options, taking payments will never be a problem. Moreover, you can then extend your reach globally.

Now let us focus on the main point and these are the top 5 payment gateways in UAE.

Top 5 Payment Gateways in UAE

#1. TELR

Telr is a very famous payment gateway in UAE. Initially, known to people as Innovative Payments, it was later acquired by Telr in 2014. Telr now supports people in more than 120 countries and the unique part about it is that it offers its services even to the growing or developing countries like Indonesia and others. It has 3 levels of account Entry, Small & Medium, each having its upfront payment to start with Telr for e-commerce merchants of
AED 349/Year, AED 99/Year+ Transaction charges, and AED 49/year + transaction charges respectively. You can also opt to go for the monthly subscription to begin with. Check it now on Telr.

#2. PAYFORT

One of the most widely used payment gateways in UAE, PayFort, comes with no setup fee or monthly charges for the starter packages. All you need is to pay a small amount of
$27 per month for the mid-tier account. Even Its commission rates are very low like 2.99% & 2.65%. After having collaborated with SOUQ.com, a giant in e-commerce trade in UAE, it launched its card-on-delivery (COD) services. Payfort also made it easier for delivery agents to process the major cards using the mobile card machines allotted to them. Check it now on Payfort.

#3. CCAVENUE

Originated in India, CCAvenue has become a popular and most preferred payment gateway in UAE today for people engaged in the e-commerce trade. Although they have a
zero setup fee, there is a huge monthly fee of $54.45 with an additional cost of 3% for every transaction.
It is definitely an expensive option, but then there are some free services that you will get along with them such as fraud prevention and 24/7 on-call support. Check it now on CCAvenue.

People everywhere will be preaching about the goodness of having a mobile app for your business. Every business today has an app. Talk about grocery stores, vegetable& fruits stores, apparels, flower shop, etc. all have apps to ease their and their customers’ life. It has not only proved beneficial but has given them greater ROI.

Mobile usage is increasing rigorously. The graph below will tell you the revenue generated through a mobile app in 2015, 2016, and 2020. In 2015, where it was the only US $69.7 billion, in 2016 it was US $88.3 Billion but by 2020 it is expected to reach US$ 188.9 Dollars.

Well, now that you know more people are using mobile apps you also need to know how many people use a Smartphone for Restaurant Mobile App.

There are many apps already in the market for various businesses. Businesses have started doing well and it’s recommended that all have an app for their business. You can run your business on the go too.  There are many reasons why an app is important. Let us look at what Statista’s survey has to say for the same:

They found out that 46.1 % used a restaurant app to check its hours of operation. 38.2% search for deal or offers, 30% order food online 23.8% make reservation through the app. Therefore, apps for restaurants are very important.

Top 5 Reasons Why Your Restaurant Needs a Mobile App

Increases Bookings

A restaurant’s KPI (Key Performance Indicator)is depends entirely on number of customers who have been served their food or have ordered take away or home delivery. Now, you know that 30% are already ordering online and with an app things will be faster. The usage of apps and mobile is only going to increase. Despite using smartphones people prefer to use apps rather than calling for placing orders. Your KPI can increase largely if you launch an app for your restaurant business. You can use Push Notifications to confirm the booking in case you do not want to hire someone specially to make calls for confirmation on bookings.

Increases Customer Loyalty

Keeping an old customer retained is much cheaper than acquiring new ones. That is why it is important to keep an eye on your loyal customers and offer them with coupons and discounts from time-to-time. This is how some food joints increased their sales using the loyalty programs.

Loyalty programs become the top motivators that make customers spend more, and offering loyalty programs through the mobile app is easier and convenient to both you and the customer.

Helps Boost your Brand

All restaurants prime focus is to increase the brand awareness and let more people know about them. In addition, having a mobile app from where they can order, book a table for 2 or more and check the menu will increase your restaurant’s brand awareness. Therefore, yes a mobile is important for the growth and popularity of any restaurant. When planning to develop an app keep the following points in mind:

• You should have a unique logo and icon for your restaurant that catches the eye of your customer and they can immediately connect to it.
• The color scheme and the design itself should be same in the entire app and your other branding activities.
• Check other apps logo and designs and compare to what you have created. Will it make you stand out and be noticeable among the others?
• Do not clutter your icon by using words.

Location based Tracking

With location based tracking enabled in the app, you can track the correct address of the customers and make sure to deliver in time. You can also use locations to send deals for specific locations luring them into a meal for a specific time and specific location. This will fetch you more customers and you will always be correct and even your customers will get to the right restaurant with the location details.

Better Payment Methods

There are times when customers come to take the orders from the restaurant but have placed the order through the app or online. Many do not turn up because they have to stand in lines to make the payment. When you are allowing them to place the order from the app, why not allow them to make the payment. This will ease your work and the customers will find it easy to make payments and will not have to wait to pick their order. Giving them multiple options for payments in the app itself is beneficial.

You must have faced issues where they place the order and do not come to pick it, with taking in app payments; they will never leave the order and will come to pick it. It saves time and keeps your restaurant clear.

MobiCommerce Restaurant’s Turnkey Solutions

Where you have only thought about an app, how about having a website, web app, mobile app, and a Facebook store altogether? However, MobiCommerce has the right restaurant turnkey solutions for you where they provide each of these to you. You do not have an app, do not worry we help to set-up all the four for you. It supports both Magento & PrestaShop eCommerce Platforms. We help to bring your offline business online.

The Turnkey Solution consists of an E-commerce Website, Mobile App, Web App, and Facebook Store. Let us take a closer look at each of them.

With technology, moving fast in all sectors it has seeped into the food and restaurant sector too. Having a mobile app not only eases your work but it also helps to boost your brand and increase your sales. It connects you and the customers well and makes sure that you are offering them the best services. Therefore, an app for a restaurant is very important.

There is no doubt that reviews play a major role for the website and for your mobile app. They can add or reduce your customers and your business based on the information shared through the review. They help in enhancing the business growth and adding more customers to the current list. Reviews have always been very important, earlier we used to take reviews in person. But today the scenario is a little different; we get more than expected reviews online when we are looking for some services or products to match our requirements.

Lets’ say You want to watch a movie, take a trip to an island or the forest, have dinner in a restaurant or buy anything else, reviews will be very helpful in making the right decision. As per the surveys of ConeComm and Score, let’s take a look at the stats below:

• 80% of people change their buying decision entirely based on the negative reviews they have read.
• 80% of people say they trust online reviews like they trust personal reviews.
• 40% people say they search for local businesses online when they plan to approach them.
• 48% will visit your app while 21% will do shopping from there.

What makes reviews important for any App?

Launching an app is one thing and making it successful is another thing. Launching is not enough for your app to be successful. You need to have a good amount of customers registered in your app and using it for shopping and other purposes. To grab these customers, it’s important to have positive reviews online. If your mobile app has good reviews, its visibility will increase and anyone searching for apps with your services or products will see it on the first page of search engines. This way they will download the app and here begins your journey of success.

Along with the positive reviews, one has to be ready and prepared for the negative ones. You can’t satisfy all the customers. Where some are happy and there will be some having complaints about your services or products. You can take their feedback and see how you can solve those issues. People look for apps that are user friendly and use the latest technology. If you have that in your app, those negative reviews might not affect them much.

Here are 5 smart ways to Boost Reviews for Your App

#1. Boost Downloads through ASO

If your app has friendly features and users don’t face any problems understanding them, your success ratio will be high in App Store Optimization. This will increase the download of your app. So, if the customers' say that your app is user friendly and feature enriched, new customers will be compelled to download the app benefiting you the most.

#2. Ask For Reviews

Make it a rule that whenever there is a first time user of the app, you ask them to leave a feedback and rating. It is important to boost your sales and downloads and even more important to get the feedback to make more improvisation for the future. You can be sure to increase the reviews this way.

#3. Offer Rewards

Rewards are welcome anytime. You just need to set a few rules and you will see how happy the customers will be upon receiving the rewards. You can offer them discounts, or add money to the wallet for certain activities or purchase. This way you will get sales and of course more positive reviews from the customers as well.

#4. Give On-time Support

There will be many customers who are facing problem either using the app or making a purchase or adding products to the cart and they will always contact you for the same. Giving them immediate support and helping them sort the issues will always leave a positive impact and build more trust in them resulting in getting more positive reviews for your app.

#5. Run Contest on Social Media Platforms

If you want to target more people you must use social media platforms as your main marketing tool. You run a contest for the app users, announcing some enticing prizes for the winners. This will ensure that customers who don’t have the app will download it that helps to increase your customer base and you will have more contestants to participate. This way your reviews will increase more.

Just bear in mind not to have fake reviews added, because if there any fake reviews then you might end up losing customer loyalty plus your app might be removed from the app store.

Summary

Reviews play a major role for apps as it enhances the sales, and increases the visibility. Thus, one must always ask for reviews from their customers at the right time. Be it positive or negative reviews must be taken from them. If it’s positive, it is fine. But, what if it is negative as negative reviews will be dangerous for your business. Take an immediate action, solve their issues as soon as possible and make them happy.

Have you ever got the feeling of disappointment of not getting a product as described in the store? Well, you are not alone! With the inception of the virtual world, such disappointments have only increased more and more amongst people. And by the virtual world, we meant to include mobile e-commerce apps as well. It is very rare happening that you downloaded an e-commerce app in your mobile and liked it immediately. And maybe in seven heavens, you may get one such app that has each feature you have ever craved for. However, it is easy to criticize others, but whenever you are in the same position of the creator, many points just slip out of mind. To help you out in such situation, we will discuss top 7 such must have features that will help you to engage more customers. Keep reading.

#1. Upgraded User Interface

The first concern in engaging your customer should include the user interface or UI. Your mobile app should be well updated with the latest version of the Android and IOS8 as well. If not, lots of customers will be deprived of visiting your app, and it should be avoided at any cost. It not only brings bad reviews, but it also reduces customer engagement and conversions as well.

#2. Better User Experience

The user experience is a complex field to dive in. It is a vast area, and many things can be included in this field, although you cannot satisfy all the customers at the same time. However, simple User Experience or UX is best preferred. To enhance the user experience, you should include personalised widget system, deep link, social media logins, quick guest checkout, advanced product filter, customized views such as masonry grid view or layout editor, etc. However, depending on your business type, you can include many other features as well to simplify the UX.

#3. Push notification

Another great feature one should add to increase their conversion rate is push notification. Push notifications are always handy, and it gives customers precise information about many things that are going in an app without opening that app. However, push notification should always be included strategically; otherwise it will be a complete waste.

As per the study report shared by David Mitchell, Push notifications have a 97% response rate.

Read more: How Push App Notifications can Enhance Customer Retention

#4. RTL support

RTL means right to left. Only a very few languages in this world use the RTL text direction but those few languages cover more than billion of people, and among them, the most important region is the Middle East. So, if you are launching an app worldwide, never forget to make it supportive of RTL. Otherwise, you will be missing one big chunk of customers.

Read more: Why MobiCommerce is Most Preferred mCommerce Platform in Middle East Countries?

#5. Better globalization

A mobile app should have a great globalization feature to grab a bigger customer base and to increase the conversion rate. For such purpose, multi-lingual feature, multi-currency feature, multi-store setup feature should be added in any mobile apps.

#6. Offers, coupons and discounts

Another great feature to attract customers to your mobile app is to give different attractive offers, discounts, coupons, etc. Whenever customers see that coupons and different offers are available on your apps, they are more likely to install it and use it. Let’s see what Think with Google Says about app re-engagement.

#7. Feedback and analytics

Feedbacks are an excellent way to engage customers, and it is true for mobile applications as well. The feedback and analytics option in your mobile app can increase your client retention. Whenever new customers think of installing any app, they first scroll through the feedback area. From a survey of PeopleClaim, it has been seen that 70% of customers consult product feedback or reviews before making a final purchase decision. Also, a good analytics and tracking system also helps to engage more customers.

Conclusion

We all know and it is pretty much clear that it is not easy to attract customers to install mobile apps. As much as people install mobile apps, they uninstall it at the faster rate. From aKantar/ITRstudy report, it has shown that in a span of 1 year, almost 89% of customers are likely to uninstall an app. However, if the above seven features and characteristics are being kept in mind, the uninstall rate might be reduced for your mobile apps. Also, there are other features as well that helps to increase the conversion rate of the customers such as more visual representation because it has been proved from the report of Kissmetrics that 93% of our brain are more perceptive to visual presentation, frequently held contests, more video representations, better advertisement on social medias etc. can be extremely helpful in promoting your mobile apps. But before applying these secondary features, one must implement the primary feature which is mentioned above to create the base customer retention place. Happy featuring!

When it comes to middle-east countries such as UAE, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iran, Qatar and so on, everything they need in mobile apps are local language and currency. People residing in such countries prefer shopping and browsing through apps which are in local languages as they find it easier, comfortable and are thorough with it. There are many RTL (Right to Left) languages but mainly customers ask support for Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian/Farsi.

Most of the mobile app solution providers are failing in integrating RTL languages correctly in their solution. Mobicommerce fully supports RTL. Our research and development team worked hard to make solution fully compatible for RTL languages.

Our solution is completely configurable with admin therefore the delivery team ensure accuracy; they configure all labels, messages, and banners in apps correctly.

Similarly, Mobicommerce also supports middle-east currencies i.e. AED (United Arab Emirates Dirham), BHD (Bahraini Dinar), JOD (Jordanian Dinar), QAR (Qatari Riyal), SAR (Saudi Riyal) etc. and also supports most of the payment gateways which support these currencies.

MobiCommerce fairly meets a Middle East ecommerce store owner’s expectations which they want to have in their mobile ecommerce app.

Our customers from Middle East are highly satisfied with our support as despite of language barriers, we deliver the apps as they desire.

Find below some of the Successful Apps developed for Middle East Clients.

Elryan

Cavaraty

AuRevoirCinderella

Josooq

Be Unique

Vegcart

Bella-jordan

Ananas

Khodarji

Indian Mobile E-commerce is growing with increasing use of smartphones, tablets. Assocham is the Associated Chambers of Commerce of India. It is a regulatory body looking for trading, commerce and industrial development in India since 1920. As per Assocham, the e-commerce worth increased from $30 billion in 2016 to $120 billion in 2020. It is growing at an annual rate of 51% that is the highest growth rate in the world.

Interesting facts of Mobile E-commerce:

IJIRCCE is an international journal involving in computer science, IT and communication engineering.​ As per the report,

• In India, there are around 160 million internet users. In which 86 million people access the internet through mobile phones.
• 9% of all internet page views along with 40% of Google searches are from mobile devices.
• In past 17 years, our country accrued 15 million from broadband connections. Now it is easy to understand how in the past four years users of 3G connection have grown to 22 million.
• In India, the usage of Facebook on mobile phones accounts for 30% in social media.
• LinkedIn ranks India in 4th place among its growth markets for mobile users.

Track this mobile e-commerce by following the below 6 strategies:

#1. Mobile friendly website

According to Hosting Facts, over 50% of traffic comes from the mobiles. If your site is not responsive then you are losing a lot of money from your pocket. Hence, it is recommended to redesign your website with a responsive theme which helps to boost conversion rates and sales.

Here we are talking about user experience. Page loading time plays a vital role in increasing user interaction. It would be 7% loss in conversions if there is a one second delay in loading time of your website. When website loading time is over 3 seconds, it is observed that 40% consumers likely to leave the page. Moreover, it also plays a significant role in increasing the search engine rankings. You can find out page speed of your website via Google PageSpeed Tool, GTmetrix or other such tools. To shorten the load times try to reduce the file size without compromising the quality of images or the site at all. You can also optimize images, minimizing java scripts and much more to improve the page speed. That will turn into more conversions in e-commerce.

#2. Mobile App review, ratings & ranking

The below figure depicts the average time spent per day on mobile internet as well as a mobile app. To be on the top ranking of the marketplace, the app rating and review strategy have found to be helpful.

One of the important strategies to boost your mCommerce by leading to a maximum downloads ratio of your app. The reviews and ratings can be achieved by App Store Optimization which increases your app visibility, the higher the rank, more the visibility. The ranking of the app can be increased via numerous factors such as Positive ratings from current users can be encouraged by giving them some benefits, retention of the app by current users, maximum downloads can be encouraged by giving the users monetary benefits, incentives or either and discounts, etc. Also, downloads can be done providing the other benefits such as App icon, the attractive and meaningful the icon would be, the more users will download it to check, screenshots, images, etc are the other external factors to increase download ratio as well as improve ranking.

#3. Digital Wallet feature

The decision of demonetization of Rs. 500 and 1000 bank notes initiated by the government of India from 9 November 2016. The demonetization has created hype in our country. As you all know that cash transaction is becoming a major problem, people are looking for other ways to do so. Such methods are e-wallets i.e. Paytm & Oxigen, online transactions like e-banking etc.

Mobile Wallets are becoming hot these days and for retailers to sustain their business and be in the market, it is mandatory to have their mobile app with updated payment methods inclusive of a digital wallet. This digital wallet should be having extra features such as Loyalty Program, Digital Coupons, and Location Based Services unlike traditional wallet.

#4. Experience like in-store shopping

Retailers choose mobile as their top priority, and they are placing it at the top of their list. MCommerce apps are providing great shopping experiences with low caching time, price comparison facility, cart, checkout etc. That further suits the needs of the consumer as all they demand is speed and ease in functionality. Personalize your brand the way customers like and try to strike a chord with your target audience.

#5. Buying options

India is one of the youngest demography globally which is using smartphones. According to Assocham, about 75% of online users are in the age group of 15-34 years. To hit the mark, retailers have to create a variety of age-targeted products. They also need to improve their sales graph. They should offer great discounts categorizing to ages. Like kiddo offers school and stationery stuff. For young boys and girls, it should be the latest trends of garments, stylish products and much more.

#6. Safe and secure online payment systems

Amazon, Alibaba, Flipkart and Snapdeal are playing an important role in Indian E-commerce. As per the report of Newswire, India will reach $75 billion mobile E-commerce Market by the year 2021. People are afraid of online transactions because of the security of online payment systems. As per Dazeinfo, out of the total transaction, online payment was 14% only in February 2015.

Conclusion

Without any doubt, we can say that this is the time for the expansion of the mobile e-commerce industry. The fact is an average online user issuing mobile for browsing. It gives mobile e-commerce an opportunity to draw more users to their sites.

Try to focus on implementing mobile responsive themes for your websites. That allows easy access to browse the products or services. Apply innovative marketing strategies to attract more customers.

Resolution time! We are in the midway of December and 2017 is knocking our door. But before opening the door for new opportunities, we the people, love to make some plans and resolutions and e-commerce industry is no more an exception. E-commerce is growing, but still, majority customers prefer shopping online. So, how to increase the e-commerce sale in 2017? Here, we will give you some suggestions or rather resolution which should be adopted to become more successful in your eCommerce business.

But before that, we should consider another point– the trends. What will be the trends of e-commerce in 2017?

So, before writing down any strategies, let us have a look at the upcoming trends for better effective resolution.

E-commerce growth shifts towards Asia – It all started with the US, but now the e-commerce growth has been shifted towards Asia, and that is good news for us.

Mobile – People are more relying on Smartphone. It is not only the device used for calling and messaging, but also considered as a way to get the whole world in your hand.

The growth of artificial intelligence – This is a whole new concept which is yet to be applied in real life. However, it is predicted to be a trend by the end of 2017.

Competition – And yes, in 2017 the industry of e-commerce will be crowded than ever, and the competition will only increase.

E-wallet – This trend has been started from 2016 as people made their payments through different payment apps, but it has been predicted that this trend will embrace a massive place by the end of 2017.

These are just a few of the trends of 2017. Now, we are coming to the point – what resolution what should we make to increase e-commerce sales?

Let us enlighten you with some of the e-commerce resolutions you should try out in 2017.

#1. Mobile application

In this era of Smartphone, mobile apps are utterly necessary. The days of websites are over, get a makeover and enter the world of m-commerce applications. From different surveys and studies, you can see that mobile commerce app is dominating the world of e-commerce than desktop. So, make this resolution as the top one. According to IMRG Capgemini Q2 (May to July) report in the UK, out of the £24.2bn online spending during this quarter, £8.7bn spent through mobile devices and tablets.

Read more: Mobile Commerce – A Success Saga

#2. Drone delivery and returns

Though, it is a very new idea in the realm of e-commerce; it will eventually take the place of normal delivery. Unlike offline shopping, people do not get the product on the same day they are ordering. But it is highly necessary, and people even want to make extra pay for same-day delivery. And not only deliveries but returns are also one of the pain-point of online shopping. This can be made easy with drone service.

#3. Chatbots

After Google Allo introduced in the US with funny Google Assistant; Chatbots will be a new trend of 2017. According to Bi Intelligence, people are using messaging apps much more than social media. It will help to increase your customer support and sale of products. It will engage customers in a better way. So, do not forget to put Chatbots on your resolution list.

#4. Combine the systems

Combine your online business with offline! With the introduction of Amazon’s new Checkout free retail store, we can predict safely that this trend will grow more in 2017. It does not matter how e-commerce is growing but still customers rely more on touching the product before buying. And with ‘checkout free’ option, eCommerce will grow and retail stores too.

#5. Predictive analysis

Embrace your perfect marketing strategy in 2017 with the help of predictive analysis. Big Data will help you in determining a customer’s purchasing habits, preference and even maybe the next purchase. This will help you to increase you e-commerce sale more rapidly.

#6. Keep your data clear

In the case of online shopping; people mainly rely on the reviews and photos of a particular product. So, keep updating your product description, real-time photos of the product and obviously reviews. These things help a lot in increasing your business sale.

#7. More offers and discounts

Offers and discounts are what attract customers toward online shopping in spite of having many disadvantages. So yes, more black Fridays are coming this year!

Verdict

No one can predict the position of any business growth accurately. And e-commerce industry is no exception. However, as a newly growing field, eCommerce industry is still pretty much unstable and is in constant need of comprehensive strategies to boost it up. So, if you are planning to boost up your e-commerce sale in 2017, make your resolution accordingly and obviously do not forget the above strategies for a better and a secure way to increase your sale.

Smart phones are the shortest route for any company to reach its customers. And nothing works better than having a dedicated mobile app for your eCommerce business. It is predicted that the sales initiated through mobiles would increase considerably in the next few years. Unless you want to miss out on some significant audience and revenue, it is important that you strengthen and diversify your mobile app strategy.

So, you might have come up with that eye catching and user friendly mobile app for your business but are you making the most out of it? What are some out-of-the-box ways to derive maximum benefits from your mobile commerce app?

1. Offer Offers

Discounts and Offers never go out of style! It doesn’t matter if you are running an online business or a brick and mortar store, discounts would always do the trick. The ‘off’ word could turn way more heads than having Angelina Jolie as your Brand Ambassador does. Give your users offers like Special Day Sales, Deals of the Day and the like through your mobile app. One thing I am sure users do hate is the regret they would have for passing up on a great offer. Apps could also alert users about such offers through push notifications.

2. Operation Interaction

I am sure you know that most MNCs spend millions of bucks on their market research. But did you know that your mobile app could get it for you free of cost? Use your mobile app to crowd-source answers and to conduct polls and surveys about your brand and its products. The benefits of this idea would be two-fold. While it helps you understand the pulse of the users and what they are expecting from the products, it also helps keep them engaged on your app.

3. Reward Loyalty with Offers and other Value Added Benefits

In a time when customers are spoiled for choice with too many options, rewarding your loyal customers does make very good sense. Reward customers who make regular purchases through the app with user-specific offers. This could be cash-backs, promotional gift coupons or even free downloads of apps and music. The deals should be good enough to entice them to stick with your app for future purchases too. Having a referral program that is rewarding is another good idea you should consider. Your users would be doing all the marketing for you.

4. Make it as Easy and Simple as Possible

It is a lazy world full of lazy people! Make sure that your mobile commerce app is designed keeping that in mind. Your app should allow customers to place orders very easily. The steps involved should be least complicated and should help them place orders conveniently and quickly from any place they are in and at any time they want to. Design it in a way that it helps them do comparison shopping too.

Read more: How to Combat Abandoned Shopping Carts on Mobile

5. Push, Push and Push

One unbeatable superpower a mobile app gives you is the power of push notifications. Alert users about new arrivals, deals and offers using your app’s push notifications. Give out one liner ads about your brand from time to time. The benefits are again multi-fold. There is more chance for your app to be opened and for your users to be engaged ultimately leading to a better conversion rate in the end. The brand constantly remains in your user’s mind too.

Read more: Why Push Notifications must be part of your integral mobile commerce development and marketing plan?

6. It isn’t just about Sales

There is no strict rule that your mobile app should just be used to boost up your sales and revenue. It could in fact help you provide a better service for your customers and user-base. Wondering how? Try and develop your mobile app into an efficient mobile customer service and install a responsive complaint management system. The app could be used to collect user feedback about your products and services and to keep track of usage patterns of your customers.

DON’T MISS THE BUS

With the increased usage of phones for multiple purposes, it is very important for eCommerce brands to start making the most out of its mobile apps. It is a bus they would surely hate to miss as once you fall behind, catching up won’t be easy at all!

Mobile Commerce, once believed to be a part of eCommerce is a different and upcoming stream in online world. Just from being responsive to only mobile is a new and catching up trend. Have you wondered what are the reasons behind it and how this evolution started and now where is it heading. With this evolution, businesses are also taking leap forward to keep their pace with trends and technologies.

View today’s scenario of Mobile Commerce as well as the future of it. Read how mCommerce can help your business to get bigger. Share this powerpoint presentation to spread the word.

Anyone who has been in any type of customer sales position before knows the routine to making more sales.

More customer leads = more face to face meetings = increased sales. Which is why the majority of your marketing expenditure goes on finding new business.

For an e-commerce website that means more expenditure on pay per click or SEO to attract new customers. But could you make a better use of your marketing budget by examining your existing customer flow and improving it? Even small improvements in your checkout process could make a big difference to your bottom line profit.

The Rise Of The Phablet

More and more customers choose to do their buying on mobile devices. Mobile handset screen sizes are becoming bigger and “Phablets” are eroding Tablet market share.

And it’s going to get harder with the proliferation of “Phablets” and the associated User Experience problems that need to be solved. It is more important than ever that all the hard work you do to attract new buyers results in a positive shopping experience across mobile devices.

So why do so many mobile online shopping sessions end with an abandoned cart and an empty till? Here are the top fourteen reasons why people abandon their shopping carts:

Take Action Against Abandoned Carts

Now that we know why they abandon we can start doing something about it. On the basis that 80% of results are going to come from the top 20% causes let’s look at the first two:

1. Presented With Unexpected Costs

If over half of your intended purchases are curtailed because of unexpected costs then this is the first area to focus on. Do you provide information about delivery costs upfront? I know I’m often put off when I’ve decided to buy something and find the delivery cost tacked on at the end is unacceptable. Make all your charges for delivery and extras as transparent as possible so customers know what to expect when they reach the checkout button.

If VAT or Tax charges are applicable make sure your customer knows about them upfront. Finding out that the total cost is 20% more expensive due to extra charges is guaranteed to lead to abandonment.

2. Found A Better Price Elsewhere

Competing on price is taking a short circuit to the bottom of an e-commerce race you can never win. Unless you are extremely lucky to be in a niche marketplace with few other players then prices will always be compared. You can’t beat the drop shippers who compete solely on price but where possible adding more value to your product is always a more preferable way forward.

You can add value by providing more product information and offering a more personalised shopping experience. Push relevant offers and offer coupons. Utilise buy online/pick up in store wherever possible.

Improve Your Shopping Cart

Sometimes you don’t need to go to great expense or even time to fix problems that you didn’t know existed.

For example:

Make It Easy To Edit The Shopping List

Have you ever been half way through an online purchase and had to go backwards and forwards checking your shopping basket as you go? Provide a visible basket that can be seen on every page so that the customer knows exactly what they have before they approach the checkout.

Provide Thumbnail Images

When you are shopping in a store you know exactly what’s in your basket because you can see it all. As you hand over items to the cashier you can double check the right sizes and colours as you go. Providing thumbnail images in your checkout process is a great way to reassure customers they have the right items in their basket.

Add Visible Security Badges

many people feel uncomfortable giving up their card details online so make their environment seem as secure as possible by providing highly visible security badges.

Use 3D Secure

Most UK banks now support 3D secure authentication and customers can be put off if it’s not present. Use a payment gateway that supports 3D secure or equivalent security protection.

The Easiest And Best Method Of All

Use friends and family to browse your store and make dummy purchases. Try to find the least tech savvy people you know to use your store and you might find the results eye opening. It’s often the case that YOU know how to use the navigation but a complete newcomer to online shopping may find it difficult to use. User experience (UX) testing should be a big part of your fight against shopping cart abandonment.

Abandoned Cart Emails

Most popular shopping carts have “abandoned cart emails” that can be customised and combined with coupon codes to entice customers to retrieve their shopping cart. It’s a great feature when used properly but don’t forget to take the time to configure it accurately. You don’t want to be sending out emails to people who had their credit card declined for example.

Summary

They say prevention is better than the cure and in the case of abandoned shopping carts it’s true. You’ll probably never discover all the reasons people abandon but using the mobile device and testing the checkout process with technophobes has to be the simplest and easiest fix there is out there.

After that make sure there are no nasty surprises when customers reach the checkout and reassure them with security images and trust.