This month in the world of app commerce – January
The “Golden Quarter” that is Q4 has finally come to an end. As we head into uncertain waters of what 2019 will hold for retail; we take a look at the industries latest research on driving better customer experiences, the growth of mcommerce and app commerce globally and the latest predictions for the road ahead.
Customer Experience – the master key to successful retail
Customers are complex and so is the way they shop. In order to master customer experience we can and should approach the customer journey from a variety of angles. It’s important to remember that despite the retail apocalypse looming over us, and the demise of the high street feeling more real than ever before, consumers will make the ultimate decision on its survival and useful. Within physical retail, the future of physical retail is app. According to the latest research by the REPL Group, shoppers think that apps could enhance the instore shopping experience. Seventy per cent claimed that they thought having an app instore with real-time stock information, product recommendations and the ability to give store access to in-depth information about their customer profiles would improve the shopping experience.
Not only could apps drive the way we shop instore and potentially provide the answer to if not prolong the retail apocalypse. The demand for improved and better digital experience is growing. uSwitch suggests that the reasons why the demand for mcommerce will be greater in 2019 than ever before is because apps are simple, mobile shopping is easier and more convenient.
How can we create a better user experience?
A recent post suggests five top user experience (UX) design tips for your shopping app including; horizontal filtering, keeping checkouts simple and taking a user-centric stance around search. Discover how to improve user experience by reducing user frustration caused by loading speeds with skeleton views from our Product Designer, Luis Abreu in his blog post.
Learn how to take a user-centric approach to build your app roadmap with our whitepaper.
The ultimate guide to preventing bad app reviews
The growth of mcommerce solidifies its global position
We’ve established that there is a demand for mobile and especially app commerce, so what is the current state of affairs?
This month there has been an overwhelming plethora of stats have been published reporting the continued growth and dominance of mcommerce, especially on a global scale. The US has been renowned for lagging in the adoption and uptake of app commerce by consumers, however, recent research has shown that smartphone’s share of retail sales jumped 14% reaching 31.1% in Q3 2018 in the US as well as continuing to grow globally. According to Criteo, retailers who are advertising and marketing their apps are seeing a steady increase in transactions and approximately 60% of their transactions are from mobile.
Looking ahead
It’s a new year and we’ve all had time to reflect on last year’s successes and take lessons from the failures. With predictions of what’s to come for retail are flying left, right and center about the year to come. This month we’ve compiled a list of the latest industry predictions for 2019 and beyond:
- By 2021, mobile is expected to comprise of nearly 75% of ecommerce transactions – App Annie, The State of Mobile in 2019
- November 2018 saw the biggest month for mobile shopping ever. Shopping app sessions alone grew 65% globally compared to 2 years ago – App Annie, The State of Mobile in 2019
- Mcommerce will continue to grow in 2019 because of the immediacy and ease mobile affords. Conversational commerce looks to develop and become part of mcommerce – BizReport
- 5G, anticipated to reach 40% population coverage by 2024, is set to supercharge the way we shop. With faster downloads speeds of up to 10 times, shoppers will be able to browse and shop with less friction and frustration on waiting for content to load – Mobile Marketer
- “Smartphones will play a role in about 90% of all digitally influenced sales, and by 2023 will see their influence grow to represent $1.4 trillion in retail sales, Forrester said.” – Retail Dive
- The future of phone hardware is foldable screens. The infamous Motorola Razr flip phone of 2004 is being revamped by Lenovo to have a folding display and Samsung is expected to unveil their latest phone with a folding display on February 20 – Business Insider
Reported by Samantha Rigg
