The Disruptive Retail Apps! Heralding an Innovative Age for Buyers & Sellers!!

 

We stand at the cusp of a completely different world, waiting to fuse in the physical & the digital seamlessly and effortlessly. The Retail industry, just as other major sectors find it essential to research & invest in rolling out niche retail apps for mobile to suit the changing preferences of the customers catered to by innovative mobile application development companies.

 

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Disruptions in the Retail brought in by Technology

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Buzzwords like Social Media, Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), Cloud, Retail Analytics & Mobile technologies are proving to be the key technology propellers of the revolution within the retail industry, which effectively leverages both hardware & software resulting into comprehensive app based solutions.

Disruptions brought in by the cool millennials herald a new age of Retail altogether. The changes brought in are monumental.

Completely Different Ways of Buying

With mobile apps, potential customers seamlessly compare products & prices across multiple stores & brands easily with just a few clicks. These aspects lend a level of flexibility with multiple options to the customer of today, and the package is complete with the anytime anywhere concept. Traditional window shopping gets replaced with convenient mobile apps.

Tactical Changes to Marketing

Retailers looking to adapt to the digital revolution are talking about state-of-the-art, smart marketing techniques like beacons-based proximity marketing to cater better to the attention span of possible customers. It is well-known that marketing driven by social media goes a long way with a mobile device, which pushes the business case to build an appropriate app even further.

For customers not in-store, retail mobile apps help drive future purchases by appropriate push notifications aligned to upcoming events pertaining to sales, or offers that would possibly entice the customer. During on-premise user experience, mobile application development companies devise push notifications that enable a customer to navigate to primary interest areas, grabbing his or her attention span better with shelf items. Mobile app personalization for retail become the new magic trick today.

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Ideal Features for Retail Mobile Apps

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An enviable feature list for mobile apps to entice the user is a huge task. The features come across as focused as well as innovative.

News & Happenings

It is now easy to push the latest news about the retail enterprise by engaging better with the users. The mobile app needs to be synced with the application blog, which in turn needs to be periodically updated with exciting content.

Deals

Nothing attracts customers more than hot deals, discount offers, special coupons valid for a limited time period, or any other events that promote customer loyalty.

Analytics

Retail-based analytics solutions leveraging the right technologies will allow an enterprise to identify pitfalls in its campaigns, as well as pinpoint areas that resulted in heavy interest generation. The available data effectively helps better connect with customers offering intuitive integration with personalization.

Push Notifications

Specific personalized notifications help attract the attention of the audience in the most logical way.

Loyalty Benefits

Best way to retain customers by rewarding them with achievements, points & discount offers based on previous purchases or spending. The retail mobile apps cater to this feature extensively.

Multi-Platform Capabilities

Catering to multiple platforms is the call of the day. This helps the organization capitalize on time as well as optimize cost and keep the users enticed across platforms.

Categorization, Sorting & Filtering

Combination of selection features ensure comfortable and easy browsing of the virtual stores and are an integral part of the retail apps.

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Retail Mobile Apps – Technology Support

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Today, a significant chunk of mobile devices comprises of one of these three platforms; Android, iOS or Windows. The easy availability & volumes of mobile devices empowered by these platforms have radically changed the shopping experience perception. The experience of shopping online has clearly improved considering the popularity of mobile platforms. When it comes to innovative enterprise mobility development to support the Retail sectors, apps bring in the best.

Augmented Reality

Augmented reality AR clearly brings out the best of mobile devices by enhancing the reality with additional information on offers & products with in-store audios, message notifications and eye-catching, superimposed images.

Beacons

Much has been talked about this revolutionizing technology that is leveraged now at stores, malls & retail outlets. Proximity-based marketing has put on a new look with these tiny beacons to grab the attention of the patrons and has been redefined to cater to a certain level of personalization.

Mobile Payments

The convenience of paying without cash or even cards is now assumed by customers as a routine convenience. Google & Apple Pay are making use of features like biometric authentication and the same is being factored into retail mobile apps as well, resulting in a holistic experience for the customer.

Geolocation

Advanced technologies like AR & beacons rely on knowing the customers present in the vicinity so as to determine who can be geographically pinpointed for marketing purposes. Geolocation-based apps when combined with retail analytics prove to be a differentiator when it comes to targeted marketing.

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The Millennials & Retail Apps

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The major strategy shift in the retail business is a result of the tech-savvy, alert & unforgiving millennial shoppers. Contemporarily designed mobile apps for the retail business are a prerequisite to retain the attention span of the millennials.

• 50%+ millennials are expected to carry a smartphone or similar digital devices on-the-go and have the urge to research every product before an in-store or roaming purchase.
• The level of access when it comes to retail by millennials is multi-layered. They are expert at combining connect channels, be it in-store or online shopping considering the wide variety of devices available.
• Considering the impulsive shopping behavior of millennials, retailers need to design corresponding applications that can push dynamic offers and generate personalized experiences
• Gamification quotient is important within retail apps considering the level of engagement and the impact of experience on millennials
• Usage of technology online as well as in-store tends to impress the millennials. To promote brand retention within the millennial customer segment, using in-store touch screens, beacons and related technologies is a must!!
• Generating personalized shopping experiences & loyalty benefits require sharing locations, or a certain amount of personal information, something that the millennials are clearly comfortable with.

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In a Nutshell

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For engaging millennials better, smart retailers tend to setup favorable ecosystems when it comes to retail space design. A natural aspect of this surrounding are retail apps & related solutions that take the next leap beyond innovation & technology.

A Mashup of Retail Tactics for the millennials

• Wearable, smartphones and similar digital devices for easy & flexible shopping experience
• Retail analytics & big data for slicing & dicing the data collected to generate knowledge that can influence retail business decisions
• Seamless experiences covering online & point-of-sale mediums empowered with communication & networking technologies

The needs of the society today are easily facilitated by well-designed communication networks & mobile devices, which add an edge to the retail industry. The expectations of the customers as well as the retail workforce are easily catered to by the available retail segment apps offered by mobile application development companies.