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Fashion Appcommerce Trends You Shouldn’t Ignore

AppCommerce In Fashion And How Retailers Can Catch Up

The eCommerce fashion industry has been growing at an exponential rate.

Perk up your ears, especially if you own an online fashion store.

Increasing authoritative data suggests the eCommerce Fashion Industry revenue will nearly DOUBLE by the end of 2022 from 2018.

We can say with conviction that the data did not predict the CoronaVirus pandemic, and the expected growth is likely nowhere close to those statistics… it will be MORE, an insane amount of MORE.

Nobody can predict how much so we will roll with those statistics.

In numbers – The worldwide revenue of eCommerce fashion is expected to rise from $481.2 billion in 2018 to $712.9 billion by 2022.

(Source – Fashion and Apparel Industry Report

Add to this the impact of COVID-19 and how anxious consumers are choosing to shop online from the safety of their homes instead of physical stores, and we don’t have double, triple, or quadruple growth.

No!

Ladies and gentlemen, we are most likely to witness exponential growth – Not just Vertical, but Vertical AND Horizontal Growth!

Meaning not just a rise in numbers but a surge in scope.

Here’s a fancy chart for you 😉

growth of ecommerce in fashion industry

We are not for jumping on every industry trend that is well…trending. But, such a trend we are experiencing now happens only every hundred years or so.

And if you don’t catch it, jump on it, or hold onto it tightly, you will find yourself holding your head in your hands.

We don’t wish this for you. It’s time to make decisions and implement them faster. Today we have a powerful article for you with lots of stats and numbers, which will help you make an informed decision in the future.

Don’t miss it!

The rise of AppCommerce in the fashion retail industry

CCI stated that the year-over-year revenue growth for US retailers online is already up by 68% as of mid-April, surpassing the peak of 49% in early January. The report also suggests that there has been a 129% increase in the number of orders placed online in the US and Canada alone and a 146% growth in all online retail orders.

But that’s not all. Statista also reports that there has been a 70% increase in mobile device usage as the world went into lockdown.

^^^ This ^^^^.

Read that again – a 70% increase in mobile device usage due to Corona, and the habit is here to stay.

Consumers spend more time on their mobile devices for personal and professional purposes.

And that reason is ENOUGH for fashion retailers to make the next move – embracing AppCommerce like you would assume a loved one after being separated for five years for whatever reason.

You get my point. If you’re still skeptical, READ THIS: Why brands like Shein, Nike, Zara, and Steve Madden have a mobile app.

According to our study, Shopify stores saw a 41% increase in revenue through their mobile apps from February 2020 to April 2020 in the US alone, compared to the revenue generated from November 2019 to January 2020. The number further increased by 117% as the fashion retailers entered April 2020. It started when consumers started to go under lockdowns due to COVID-19, looking at ways to keep themselves engaged and order what they need online to now online shopping becoming a way of life.

Of course, your results will differ.

appcommerce - mobile app revenue plobal

As we advance into the new normal, fashion and apparel retailers must adapt their strategy to mobile.

But with more brands going online and increasing competition, it’s essential to take your mobile strategy a step further from mCommerce (mobile responsive sites) and find a way to improve ‘brand stickiness’ – A system that will have consumers coming back to your brand over and over again, irrespective of the offers being made to them – a mobile app.

But there’s a catch. Some people quickly adapt to trends, and early adopters always have the most significant advantage.

The late-comers always miss out, be it in school, or be it in business. You don’t want to wait for market saturation to begin turning your store into an app. Act fast.

Think about how many times you opened the Amazon app in the last two months. Be it to purchase essentials or wishlist items you want to order after the stay-at-home order is lifted.

Why do fashion and apparel retailers need a mobile app? 

Online shoppers prefer mobile apps to mobile sites

The need to be mobile-ready has been spoken about endlessly. But what a lot of businesses don’t take into account is why consumers choose to purchase from retailers like Amazon instead of their stores.

The difference has the option to download an app that they can open in a fraction of a minute to make purchases or browse through vs. having to wait for each mobile web page to load and sign in each time (the biggest drop-outs happen here).

According to our survey, more than 50% of shoppers use a mobile app instead of a mobile browser to access online stores. They feel that a native app makes it much easier for them to shop, especially if they want to interact with a brand more than once.

It offers a far more personalized shopping experience, with customized offers, suggestions, notifications, and discounts, all of which you can provide through an app.

Other reasons for this preference include not remembering store URLs and logins and better security and mobile app speed than the mobile browser.

Mobile apps improve brand stickiness and strengthen customer loyalty

In times when every fashion retailer is considering going online, the increase in competition for consumer attention is skyrocketing.

A typical consumer can make a purchase from at least ten online fashion stores today. Each offers a competitive deal, discount, a first-purchase offer, or a varied range of products they’re interested in. In times when consumer has become more price-conscious and open to exploring new brands due to the extra time they have, loyalty is taking a hit.

Think about the number of ads you see on Instagram every day. You check out one new store offering home furnishings and are later shown ten more in less than a week. By the end of the week, you’ve forgotten the first store you visited.

Consumers who choose to download your store’s app show a higher level of commitment to your brand. They’re more aware of what your brand offers and are more likely to be closer to making purchases due to engaging push notifications and marketing campaigns you can provide through the app.

On the other hand, shoppers that access a mobile site are most likely just exploring new brands or trying to get more details about what you have to offer.

While studying consumer behavior, we noticed that shoppers also spent 4X more time in apps than mobile sites. Additionally, Criteo found that mobile app users are twice as likely to return to your store within 30 days compared to shoppers who accessed your site in a mobile browser.

App Commerce ensures an enhanced mobile shopping experience 

The rise of mCommerce is owed to the need to offer mobile shoppers a seamless online shopping experience. But as time progressed, this need for frictionless shopping and instant gratification grew.

Right from being able to navigate through a store, searching for specific products, and being shown product recommendations to the ability to wishlist items they would want to purchase later and more, the new-age consumer seeks a more enhanced shopping experience.

On a mobile responsive site, you typically have to remove a few design elements to streamline the load time and on-screen visual experience. This often results in not being able to offer the same shopping experience to mobile shoppers as the ones using the desktop get to interact with.

By adapting to AppCommerce or creating a mobile app, you can offer consumers a holistic shopping experience. You can provide features like creating wishlists, saving items to collections, filtering search results, and more, providing high interactivity.

The shoppers don’t have to struggle with limited navigation or to click multiple times on elements that don’t seem as intuitive – take, for instance, the ‘heart’ button below the images of the products!

Mobile apps reduce your response time to online interaction 

The load time of your Shopify store has a significant impact on the conversions you get. A mobile app offers a significantly lower response time to complete any action than a mobile-responsive site.

Let’s consider how long it takes to open Amazon on your mobile browser vs. how long it takes you to launch their app. The latter is faster; hence, you end up finding the product you were looking for and completing the purchase in minutes, compared to the amount of time you would have spent on their mobile site.

That’s because mobile apps retrieve data much faster.

The fThe faster the response time, the quicker the shopper can start their online shopping journey with the brand.

appcommerce improves ecommerce mobile response time - plobal

Adapting to AppCommerce increases conversion rates 

Easy access to a brand’s store, seamless interaction, and high usability lead to higher conversion rates. Surveys suggest that having an app increases the percentage of users who complete the desired action compared to those accessing the store on a desktop or mobile web. Be it signing up for a newsletter, creating a customer account, creating a wishlist, exploring more products, or adding a product to the cart and completing the purchase.

We noticed that Shopify stores with a mobile app saw a 27% increase in their conversion rate. Additionally, the enhanced on-the-go shopping experience also leads to shoppers browsing through 4X more products, increasing their chances of purchasing a creation during the session.

appcommerce - mobile apps for ecommerce increase conversion rate

Shopify stores have also seen a 130% higher average order value on mobile apps than on desktop and mobile sites.

Mobile apps have also proven to have a lower cart abandonment rate due to their intuitive interface and simplified checkout process. The ability to complete a purchase in just a few clicks leaves less room for distractions that could take a shopper away from making a transaction.

cart abandonment - appcommerce vs mcommerce vs ecommerce

Want to know more about the impact of a mobile app on your fashion and apparel retail store’s conversions? Contact us to get access to an exclusive study

Increased engagement. Better customer loyalty. Increased conversions and repeat purchases. More revenue.

But that’s not all. With a mobile app, your fashion retailers can use a phone’s inbuilt features to enhance customer engagement and ease of shopping further.

For instance, stores can consider enabling ordering via voice search using the microphone. They can use GPS to identify a shopper’s location to customize their in-app experience by displaying only products delivered in their area.

And now, the one reason why investing in creating a mobile app for your store only means more revenue for your brand.

App Commerce is purely organic revenue (mostly!)

According to the study we conducted, mobile app revenue is purely organic. Once you’ve set up your app, you must inform your customers about it through social media, email, SMS, or even Messenger. A simple announcement bar on your desktop and mobile site does the trick too! No paid push – a simple announcement.

The mere ease of shopping through a mobile app makes consumers want to install the app right away. In addition to quick adoption, they tend to recommend it to others in their network. Consider the number of times you’ve recommended someone to download the Amazon Prime app to make it easier to shop for daily groceries.

appcommerce revenue is organic for ecommerce stores shopify

So the revenue that comes through AppCommerce is purely organic. But if you want to give it an additional push, you can set aside some promotional budget. 

Transitioning to mCommerce takes online fashion retailers years to perfect. That’s why many are skeptical about moving to AppCommerce.

But with increased competition and changing consumer behavior, fashion retailers must take the next step.

How can fashion retailers adapt to AppCommerce?

1. Converting their online fashion store into native mobile apps 

Gone are the days when it took months to set up an eCommerce mobile app. Using our platform, the Shopify Plobal Mobile App, your store can create native Android and iOS apps in just a few days. The app offers a simple drag-and-drop builder that requires no coding skills and has many stunning pre-created app designs you can customize into your own.

You can upload unlimited product listings, organize catalogs by category, and enable real-time auto-sync with your Shopify store to ensure your apps remain up-to-date. 

turn your shopify store into mobile app - appcommerce plobal

Ready to turn your Shopify store into a mobile app? Install PlobalApps today

2. Making mobile app checkout seamless and faster 

A few rules remain the same across eCommerce, Commerce, and AppCommerce. If it takes the shopper too long to complete a purchase, there’s a high chance that they will abandon the cart despite the best products and deals you’re offering.

With a native mobile app, you can offer a seamless shopping experience to consumers and a frictionless checkout. You can enable easy payment methods with Apple Pay and Android Pay integrations and other payment gateways for lightning-fast checkouts.

This gives lesser room to online shoppers to re-think their purchases, decreasing your cart abandonment rate and increasing conversions.

appcommerce - better checkout than mcommerce

3. Setting up push notifications for better engagement 

While creating a mobile app will get you a base of customers committed to your brand, keeping them engaged is essential to drive more sessions. This is similar to how the apps on your phone remind you of a new feature you were exploring or the last time you opened the app.

You can do this by setting up push notification campaigns within PlobalApps. Promote your ongoing sales and discounts, or offer an exclusive coupon to those who install the app and make a purchase through it. Remember to keep your message crisp and clear to grab the mobile user’s attention immediately.

appcommerce in fashion - push notifications

Pro tip: Consumers have complete control over the push notifications they receive. So ensure you’re adding value to them and not spamming their notification center. 

4. Creating a customer loyalty and rewards program 

When a typical fashion shopper chooses to purchase from various brands – some new and some old- fashion retailers need to focus on customer retention. Even though installing your mobile app indicates a customer’s loyalty to your brand, it’s a good idea to ‘motivate’ them to remain this loyal.

You can do this by setting up customer loyalty and rewards programs on your Shopify store and enabling the sync of accounts with your mobile app. This allows a shopper to earn and avail of the rewards they get from purchases and other store interactions on both platforms, making them more likely to return to your desktop and mobile sites and your mobile app for more sessions.

For instance, you can offer rewards on making their first purchase from your mobile app, creating a customer account, setting up their wishlist with ten products they like, or sharing their purchase on social media.

Implementing this strategy right from the point of adopting AppCommerce will enable you to improve the stickiness of your app. At the same time, it will also encourage more app sessions leading to higher conversions and purchases.

5. Localising your mobile app to resonate with your target market 

The aim of adapting to AppCommerce is to make it easy for shoppers to engage with and purchase from your brand online. But specific markets require a personalized and localized approach to convert shoppers into customers. Think about the number of times you chose to buy from a brand that was local to your area or you understood the language they were promoting their offers in.

You can customize your mobile apps with local languages using PlobalApps and Langify integration. This enables you to promote your mobile app to new customers from different locations, offer a more local experience to those who install your app, and increase your conversions with fewer chances of drop-offs, refunds, and returns.

Does your fashion and apparel brand need to adapt to AppCommerce? 

Even though the lockdowns across the world are easing out, shopping has changed forever. Consumers will choose to make online purchases for years to come, limiting their exposure to physical retail stores to a bare minimum.

This changed consumer behavior will increase demand for easy interaction on mobile devices they’re more likely to use. While mobile responsive sites have been doing their part in letting consumers shop on mobile devices, they will no longer be able to keep up with the increased expectations for experiential and seamless eCommerce.

Now considering how fashion consumers are projected to have more buying power, with the potential number of customers estimated to grow by more than 1.2 billion by the end of 2020, retailers need to catch up on trends and technologies that appeal to this new audience.

Ready to experience the power of a native mobile app?

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