Menu Close

Why Do eCommerce Companies Promote the Use of Their Mobile App Over Web?

eCommerce companies

This answer was originally posted by us on Quora. 

A lot of Quora users were intrigued in knowing why eCommerce companies like Amazon, Etsy, Flipkart and the likes promote consumers to use their app over the web.

So essentially, we decided to share our insights on why the eCommerce industry is hands-on focusing on mobile apps v/s web.

We work with hundreds of eCommerce store owners all around the world and we’ve been analyzing this trend for quite some time now.

To put it simply, here are the top 3 reasons why eCommerce companies are focusing on mobile apps over the web:

Part 1: Increasing Adoption of Mobile by Consumers

The explosion of mobile over the last few years has been staggering.

In 2016, 54% of all mobile transactions were generated in-app! Infact, top 25% retailers saw 50% of their total sales coming in through mobile.

Shopify, one of the largest eCommerce platforms for SMBs to build and launch their ecommerce websites, reported that 58% of checkouts on their platform are now made on mobile.

mobile-commerce-mobile-vs-desktop

Source: Smile.io

More so, stats also suggest that people spend nearly 86% of their time in native apps.

As consumers are becoming more and more reliant on their mobile devices, they’re expecting to get exactly what they want, in the moment, demanding brands to deliver.

Since retail is mainly a consumer-centric business, retailers cannot choose how their customers want to buy from them. This shift in the consumer mindset has resulted in making mobile the single most important channel for retailers to focus on.

Brands have come to realize that although mobile web helps them drastically improve brand reach but mobile apps help them convert!

That brings us to our next reason,

Part 2: ‘Brands Achieve Higher Conversions With Apps’

To put it simply, app conversions are unmatched.

Brands are betting high on mobile apps because their conversions are higher than mobile web and desktops.

  • Apps convert 3x more than mobile web
  • Apps convert 1.5x more than desktops 

untitled

Source: State of Mobile Commerce 2016 Report by Criteo

Mobile Apps close the deal with customers, delivering more efficient transactions than any other channel.

More so, the average order value on apps surpasses both desktop & mobile browser put together. Apps yield larger shopping cart values than mobile web and desktops.

Part 3: ‘Apps Are Key To Driving Customer Retention & Loyalty’

Most businesses have a hard time getting users to keep coming back to their store.

Did you know that it costs businesses 7x more to acquire a new customer than to retain
an existing one
. But in order to keep growing, stores need to constantly communicate with their customers updating them about new arrivals, latest updates, discounts, and more.  

It costs businesses 7x more to acquire a new #customer than to #retain an existing one Click To Tweet

Push Notifications (within mobile apps) serve as one of the strongest retention tools businesses can utilize to increase their retention rates by up to 200%. Stats suggest that push notifications are opened 2x more than emails.

Moreover. new app users are twice as likely to return within 30 days v/s mobile web users if push notification is enabled. For those who still think push notifications are intrusive, a study by Localytics suggests that 50% of users opt into push and find push messages useful.

Higher retention leads to a better chance at creating lifetime value customers which makes Push Notifications extremely compelling for retailers to increase customer engagement & boost customer loyalty.

Conclusion:

So, there you have it, eCommerce companies encourage users to shop from their app instead of websites because,

  • Consumers are rapidly adopting mobile
  • App conversion rates are unmatched
  • Apps significantly boost customer engagement & loyalty

 

cta-get-a-free-consultation

If you have something that you’d like to add, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Share Your Views!

Related Posts