Retail & Mobile Apps: What Works and Why

The number of consumers using mobile apps is growing exponentially, and customers who use your mobile apps are often your most valuable. Alibaba recently revealed they make more money from their mobile customers (all 427 million of them!) than from their non-mobile customers. Alibaba isn’t alone. eBay announced that $9.5 billion of their sales in Q2 of 2016 came from mobile (or 45% of their GMV). Even more impressive, 57% of all of eBay’s Q2 sales were touched by mobile at some point.

Alibaba and eBay are just two examples of how big of an impact mobile customers have on retail. With all of the revenue opportunity mobile presents, the importance of understanding consumers’ mobile behavior is clear. Apptentive recently conducted a consumer survey on retail mobile app usage to help brands understand how the use of apps is evolving, and how mobile impacts retailers’ entire businesses.

The report sheds light on how consumers’ use of retail mobile apps is evolving and is full of brand new data to get you up to speed in time for the upcoming holiday shopping season. You’ll also learn what shoppers expect from retail apps and discover stories of brands who have successfully incorporated mobile into their digital and physical experiences. To wrap everything up, we dive into five actionable tips about how retailers can improve their mobile customer experience.

Best of all? The report is free for anyone to download.

To give you a taste of the findings included in the report, here’s a quick preview of what you’ll learn:

The way consumers use retail mobile apps is evolving

By now, it’s no surprise that consumers use retail mobile apps. Our survey revealed that 88% of consumers use them. It’s also no surprise that consumers use retail mobile apps while shopping in-store. 55% of people that use retail mobile apps said they use them while shopping in-store. However, the reasons consumers use retail mobile apps is shifting. The ability to make purchases directly in apps has been around for several years, which has given consumers time to embrace the new channel. Now that consumers are comfortable using mobile apps to buy, the number of people who are doing so is increasing rapidly. Retail sales on smartphones grew by 54% between 2014 and 2015. While consumers still use apps to enhance their in-app experience, that’s not all they’re using them for. People are actually using retail apps to shop.

Now that so many purchases are made via mobile apps, retailers need to make sure their mobile experiences are living up to consumer expectations.

What consumers expect from retail apps

Thanks to the internet and smartphones, the world is more connected than ever. This has transformed our shopping experiences and our expectations of the brands we love. Since consumers use retail mobile apps while shopping in-store, a number of retailers have capitalized on and contributed to increasing expectations by finding ways to seamlessly connect their digital and physical experiences. Now that consumers are using mobile apps to actually make purchases, not just supplement their in-store shopping experiences, retailers need to invest in creating standalone mobile customer experiences now. With the upcoming holiday season upon us, retailers can beef up their mobile strategies to support consumer expectations.

This includes consumers who plan on making in-app purchases and using apps to aid their in-store shopping needs.

Many retailers have mastered the in-app experience (such as Amazon, Starbucks, and eBay), so it’s extremely apparent to consumers when the experience is bad. Consumers have little patience for bad mobile experiences. If a mobile app doesn’t live up to their expectations, they will ditch the app in favor of retailers who have great mobile experiences.

Want to learn more? Of course you do! Grab your free copy of the complete survey and boost your retail mobile app knowledge now.