Smartphones have become a very essential part of our daily life. It is almost impossible to spend a day without it. We are glued to these devices in such a way that we have started using them for everything, including our daily tasks. According to Statista, the number of smartphone users is likely to exceed 3 billion worldwide, the majority of them use mobile applications on an ongoing basis. Hence, mobile commerce is considered to be the future of eCommerce.
The arrival of eCommerce has impacted hugely on businesses over the years. Ecommerce has changed the way we used to do the shopping and created a valuable source of revenue for product vendors. People these days are feeling more comfortable buying things online and are highly satisfied by the ways safe delivery is done at their doorstep.
Let us explore some of the mobile application development trends in eCommerce business:
1. Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality(VR)
By the implementation of Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) in eCommerce, mobile applications have been trending increasingly.
Doing shopping from the virtual store from any corner of the world is possible with this trend. AR and VR are helping users with Easy Shopping, Faster Payments, and Sorted Checkout Process.
What is Augmented and Virtual Reality?
- Augment Reality combines the real world and virtual objects allowing interconnection with each other in a flawless environment. Some examples of AR are PokemonGo and Facebook Selfie Masks.
- Virtual Reality merges technology and design to develop hypnotic environments. If done successfully, it will make the user feel that they are actually in that environment. This is highly achieved by the VR headset.
What is the role of AR and VR in eCommerce?
The biggest challenge for an online merchant is to convince the customers that the product they are evaluating to buy is exactly what they have been searching for. Consumers always want to get a better look and feel for a product before they make a purchase. With the help of AR and VR, customers can not only shop for products online through real-life interfaces but can also try products virtually, which helps in enhancing the shopping experience.
2. Cloud Storage
Cloud storage is a service model that maintains, manages, take back up remotely and made information available to users over a network. It offers eCommerce industries to take complete backup of business data and effective management of team. This helps them in ease of scaling in low cost, which ultimately helps them to grow a business efficiently.
What is the role of Cloud Storage in eCommerce?
By the automation of the ordering process, merchandising, inventory and shipping, the eCommerce industries are experiencing effortless tasks. This not only saves time and maintains a good quality of the eCommerce business, but it also allows the eCommerce industry to rent the hardware and software instead of purchasing.
Cloud Storage is boosting the eCommerce industry by allowing the business owners to pay according to their usage. Whenever any business of any domain refers to cloud computing, there are usually three important cloud service models taken under account. These are:
- Software as a Service (SaaS): Also called Cloud Application Services, is basically a software that is available on the internet via third-party vendors. In other words, each user is able to access the program via the internet, instead of installing it on their computers.It reduces the cost of software ownership and cost of licensing software as they are provided on a subscription level. Some popular examples: Google GSuite, Dropbox and Cisco WebEx.
- Platform as a Service (PaaS): It is built on virtualization technology. PaaS is also called as Cloud Platform Services. It provides a platform on which software can be deployed and developed. It makes the development, evaluation, and deployment of applications quick, effortless and cost-effective. Some examples of PaaS: Windows Azure, Google App Engine and OpenShift.
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): IaaS is the most flexible and self-service cloud computing model, for accessing, monitoring and managing remote datacenter infrastructure. IaaS businesses offer to pay as you go storage service, networking, and virtualization. Users can now purchase IaaS based on utilization instead of purchasing the hardware outright.It is the most flexible and highly scalable cloud computing model. Some of the examples are Amazon Web Services (AWS), Cisco Metacloud and Google Compute Engine (GCE).
3. Voice Search
With the accessibility of a voice search feature, customers can be served with an enhanced comfort level, easy search process, and selection of interest related products. This will free the customers from the difficulty of typing and searching for their desired product. Voice search is highly efficient when customers are likely to be shopping on the go, or they are just too busy to type or scroll looking for the item they need.
According to statistics, 16% of Americans own a smart speaker (and the number is increasing rapidly). Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, proudly reports that more than 20 million Amazon Alexa units have been sold since their introduction, while Google sold 6.8 million Google Home smart speakers during the holiday season alone.
4. Chatbots
E-Commerce is now closing in on the conversational sales process with the use of Artificial Intelligence Chatbots. Chatbots are one of the greatest ways to automate your communication with the customers. These bots use AI (artificial intelligence) to anticipate what the customer wants and to create a personal shopping experience based on the customer’s preferences.
The key benefit of AI-powered chatbots is that they can simulate a conversation with your customers in a natural way. They can understand your queries and provide effective solutions accordingly and can directly connect to human support managers, in case they are not able to answer your query. So, not only these chatbots help in closing a deal but they also help increase your repeat customer base.
What is the role of Chatbots in eCommerce?
- Creating a personalized shopping experience for customers- Customers expect 24*7 access to everything online, including a support agent to answer questions and resolve problems. They also expect to be guided through the purchasing process. When consumers don’t find their desired product or have unanswered questions, they leave the site, and this affects the conversion rate of customers.
- Customer Satisfaction & Value to the purchasing process- Ecommerce chatbots are designed to help speed up the customer’s purchase, offer product recommendations and provide customer service and support. With satisfied customers, the brand value increases. The customer’s online shopping experience is optimized by providing two complementary services:
- 24*7 chatbot support with shopping assistance.
- Dedicated live customer service agents.
5. The Internet Of Things (IoT)
The Internet of Things (IoT) is fabricating a digital footprint that links customers and processes. This digital footprint provides the customer with a highly customized experience, boosts revenue opportunities, and creating a more transparent supply chain. Machine learning and computing allow machines to interact with customers resulting in better customer experience. In addition, automation creates a more efficient shopping experience when it comes to tracking real-time inventory as well as the shipment of purchases.
What is the role of the Internet of Things (IoT) in eCommerce?
IoT is creating a benchmark in eCommerce business with the help of smart devices. The involvement of IoT enabled devices and their excellent features have improved customer experience. The eCommerce industry is now experiencing growth in revenue, better management of inventory, easy tracking of theft and increase-decrease in shopper intelligence.
Conclusion
In each successive iteration, we see mobile technology go from one level to another and change our lives for the better. The rapidly growing eCommerce industry is gradually shifting to the world of smartphones, as people these days prefer browsing through shopping stores on their mobile devices rather than visiting one.
Making mobile apps for retail shops helps in finding products in the store while also able to pay using the mobile app, is what defines the retail shopping app. eCommerce mobile app development companies have zeroed down upon the mobile platform to earn their dues while keeping the websites as an additional means. The future of mobile app development will be shaped by how businesses harness mobile technology to solve everyday problems of humans.
If you are searching for a reliable mobile application development company, Jellyfish Technologies is at your disposal. Our mission is to help our clients keep up to date with modern eCommerce trends.
