Do you remember the time when retail shops were the only place to buy products? We had to go in and out of multiple stores to find our desired products. Often, it took a whole day to find the right one. But sometimes, we also had to come back empty-handed after spending the whole day for it.
But now we can purchase anything under the sun from our couches with a few taps and swipes, thanks to smartphones and e-commerce applications. On top of that, new trends and technologies are making their way into e-commerce apps to make our shopping experience more exciting and hassle-free.
So, the real question is how the future of our shopping will be like in the wake of innovative e-commerce applications. Will they replace the e-commerce websites?. Will they be more advantageous for buyers and sellers? Fret not!. We’ll give you answers to all such questions in detail. Read on.
Why Mobile Apps For E-commerce?
E-commerce websites have been around here for the last two decades. But they weren’t making huge waves among users until e-commerce applications entered the scene.
Due to this phenomenon, revenue from e-commerce has skyrocketed. More and more e-commerce platforms have emerged and tasted success. Essentially, the e-commerce industry became full-fledged after e-commerce applications.
But, have you ever wondered the reason behind this paradigm shift?
The reason is that customers prefer mobile apps over websites.
Reports say that smartphone users check their smartphones at least 150 times a day. Mobile apps drive almost 90% of the users’ total smartphone usage. These trends have also encouraged business organizations to go fully mobile. 70% of the companies say that mobile has urged them to transform their businesses.
But, Why Do Users Prefer Mobile Apps?
The answer is pretty simple. Mobile apps give users a more personalized browsing experience from start to finish. For starters, a mobile app doesn’t require you to enter the URL to access an online platform. like websites, it doesn’t overwhelm or distract you with unnecessary information. An e-commerce application has intelligible and easily accessible navigation to browse products, place orders, make payments, track products, and many more. All of these factors contribute to greater user engagement.
Future Trends in E-commerce Application Development
Let’s see some prominent emerging trends in e-commerce application development.
- Ai For Accurate User Preferences and Recommendations
The applications of AI can completely transform our shopping experience to the best results. For instance, AI can analyze our buying patterns from our previous browsing data and learn our preferences. This way, the app can automatically provide push notifications on new arrivals, offers, and price drops on your preferred products.
- Chatbots For Seamless Customer Interactions
Chatbots can enhance customer interactions with an e-commerce application massively. They can help organizations connect with their customers in real-time in a more personalized way. For a more comprehensive experience, you can even sync the chatbox with social platforms like Instagram, WhatsApp, Twitter, etc.
- Augmented Reality for Product Visualization
One of the major cons of online shopping is that we can’t physically try the products in the real-world environment before we receive the product in our hands. Well, there is a solution for that. That’s what augmented reality can offer.
Integrating AR with an e-Commerce app can help users virtually see how the products look and fit in real life before having to purchase the product. For example, let’s say you are looking for a wearable or a piece of jewelry. The AR lets you see how the product looks on your body with real-like images.
- More Click and Collect Platforms
Click and collect is an emerging e-commerce platform where customers order products online and pick it up from a physical store at pre-scheduled locations. This is a hybrid version of online shopping and offline shopping. BOPUS ( Buy online, pick up in store) is another name of this e-commerce platform.
Click and collect e-commerce platforms have many benefits for customers and sellers. For starters, there is no need for delivery, thereby eliminating the costs and risks involved in the shipping process. But the most exciting part is that the customer can physically check the quality of products and cancel the order if they don’t meet the description and user standards. Click and collect platforms are relatively newbie. But we can expect more in the future.
Conclusion
E-commerce applications are proving to be one of the most profitable categories in the mobile app development industry. They are bringing more revenue to the organizations and enhancing the users’ shopping experiences. All these factors are conveying one message loud and clear that e-commerce applications will be the future of shopping.