Everybody sells on the internet today. According to the 2016 stats research in the USA, over 44% of online purchases were completed by mobile phone users. Which vividly shows us that it’s not enough to have just a desktop shopping website. A mobile shopping app is a must-have today. So how to make customers use your shopping app? This article will give you some worthy ideas!

What can shopping apps sell?

Shopping apps are widely used in various spheres like fashion, electronics, traveling and so on. If your project is about services but not goods, you can still use the idea of a shopping app.

Clothes, gadgets and interior goods

It has become a mainstream already to choose clothes, furniture or electronics on the internet. It’s way easier to compare prices, find some feedbacks and a huge diversity of goods online than going shopping in a traditional way.

Traveling and booking

By means of a shopping app in this industry, you can find all the necessary information, book a hotel, choose seats and make the order 24/7 without any days off.

Goods’ delivery

A lot of us buy things worldwide today. Your app can assist users to buy stuff worldwide or just deliver goods, but people are always willing to control their money and purchases. Isn’t it comfortable to let your customers track their package and anticipate the time of its arrival?

How to monetize your app

There are a lot of different ways to make your app earn money. We’ll tell you about some which can bring you income, both from the users or your partners.

Money transfer commissions

This way is definitely great for any kind of e-commerce app. People press the button "pay" anyway, so they can pay for using the app at a time.

Commissions for producers

This method makes your app free for the buyers, but not for the sellers of goods. This is a good idea to monetize your app. But you will have to invest efforts to guarantee the growth of sales to the producers to get their interest and make them pay to you.

Some paid features

To implement this idea successfully you must get 101% creative. The app should be almost perfect to make your users feel they need those features to make the app complete.

Paid subscription

The possibility to use your app can cost some money to those, who wants to download it. But this option is probably the most complicated. Why? Because your app should be horrendous! There are tons of free shopping apps today, so to make people pay for yours, you must steal their minds! Propose some unique features and cool perks to make users want your product.

You may choose some of these methods for the monetization or make up some others. But the decision should be made before the app creation because it influences the development process.

Technologies to use

Imagine, you have an app where users create their accounts, search for goods in different categories, add them to their wishlist and of course, buy them. How to interact with the customers if they have questions or when they make a purchase? Today, there are 4 main ways to stay in touch with the users. Let’s look at them briefly.

Live support

When your client needs a consultation about your services or has pressed the button "buy", there should be someone to talk to him. In case you choose a live communication, it’s a person who writes in the chat or makes a phone call. An alive person sounds natural and can handle requests quickly. But may cost you a lot and is not effective in case of a heavy influx of customers.

Chatbot

If you don’t want to hire staff for the support and spend a bunch of money for the development, it’s a pretty good alternative. You will just have to implement an existing solution. But you should be ready that chatbots can only use predefined answers and may seem pretty small minded. However, a chatbot is enough to perform simple tasks, like asking for personal contacts and giving some instructions.

AI

But you can turn a chatbot into a very intelligent assistant by means of Artificial Intelligence technologies. Using AI algorithms, it will not only improve itself but can also provide you with precious information about your customers. Intelligent shop assistants can also give another level of services to the clients by learning their preferences and save their time and money.

It’s surely a meticulous job to use AI, but your product will stand out from others!

Mixed type

This type of an app is a fine line between the usage of technologies and human resources. AI will help you automate routine tasks, collect information and upgrade the shopping process for the customers. Live support can be used just to complete some tasks. It’s a very effective solution, yet a pretty expensive one too.

Shopping app logic

So, you have chosen the sphere, the platform, the technologies and ready to start the development process. Let’s make sure you haven’t forgotten about the basic things.

Functionality

We really advise to start with an MVP product. Let it first be a shopping app that can assist users find things which they need, buy them and get them in time. Take care about the clarity of the user interface and data safety. Customers want your app to work without fails and they want their money and data to be safe. Pay attention that your product works great both for the buyers and sellers too.

Comfortable catalogues

We just want to remind you that it’s enormously important to place detailed, good quality pictures, create a comfortable search and provide the information about the product availability.

Notifications

Is the item from the wish list going to be out of stock soon? Has the payment process been completed? Has the package arrived? Use notifications to keep your clients informed about such things.

Delivery processing

As the task is not just to sell but also to delivery the buy, this stage should be carefully planned too. Clients must be able to track the purchase and get it in time. You may deliver the goods by post or some courier services. It’s great if you can propose various options to your clients.

And surely don’t forget to promote yourself!

E-commerce is conquering the world today. Huge retailers and small businesses pay much attention to their presence in our mobile phones. If you have an idea of a shopping application, do not hesitate to live it out with a great team of developers.