April 25, 2024

What Is mCommerce in 2023? Benefits of Mobile Shopping Apps

Nadya Bakhur

Researcher, Technical Writer

Mobile

Building Mobile Applications for E-commerce: Magento Perspectives

Nadya Bakhur

Researcher, Technical Writer

Mobile

Building Mobile Applications for E-commerce: Magento Perspectives

The mobile age is here. People increasingly use smartphones to surf the net, and businesses are becoming mobile-friendly as they wish to meet and engage with consumers in real time through mobile devices.

E-commerce is not an exception. With a considerable rise in the popularity of online purchases and the use of mobile devices for shopping, many vendors find mobile app development a lucrative option. Aside from using popular e-commerce platforms, such as Magento, Shopify, BigCommerce, or Wix, many businesses also choose to develop a mobile app. Let's look deep into mCommerce trends and learn why Magento is a great choice for mobile commerce app development.

Key Takeaways

  • Mobile commerce refers to any transaction made via mobile devices. It is a part of e-commerce that steadily grows in number of sales and is forecasted to reach $856 billion in the US only by 2027.
  • The benefits of Magento mobile commerce are improved customer experience, the ability to shop on the go, more personalized customer engagement, fast and convenient checkout, and new marketing opportunities.
  • Magento's e-commerce platform offers a mobile and app shopping experience. The Magento 2 web store is mobile-friendly by default but can be additionally optimized for better performance. The Magento app for mobile devices offers a seamless customer experience, leading to increased acquisition and retention rates and lower cart abandonment.
  • There are 3 main ways to Magento mobile app development: custom development, ready-made app builders, or PWA development. Their key differences are freedom of choosing features, cost, time to market, and the level of technical knowledge required.

What Is Mobile Commerce in Magento?

Consumers today are accustomed to using applications on smartphones and tablets to buy and sell goods. According to Statista data, the number of smartphone users worldwide has already surpassed 6.5 billion and is forecasted to grow.

Mobile commerce or mcommerce in Magento is the concept that describes the capability of Magento stores to serve customers who shop through a mobile device. The main aspects of m-commerce in Magento embrace mobile payment integrations, banking, shopping apps, and mobile-optimized browsing and checkout experience.

What's the Difference Between eCommerce and mCommerce?

Unlike ecommerce, which refers to any financial transaction made through the Internet, mcommerce refers only to transactions made through mobile devices. Figuratively, ecommerce can be compared to a tree while mcommerce is one of the branches.

This branch, however, is rapidly growing. The research by Statista shows that mobile retail revenues amounted to $491 billion in the USA at the end of 2023. Mobile has taken the lead in e-commerce, accounting for 60% of all online sales globally in 2023, reaching $2.2 trillion. Hence, launching a mobile-friendly business becomes a good way to gain profit.

How Magento Mobile App Development Benefit Businesses?

One of the main benefits the best mCommerce apps bring to consumers is the convenience of shopping on the go. The key advantages of mcommerce for Magento-based stores and businesses include:

Improved customer experience

mCommerce provides higher load speed and familiar interactions, which are the basis for a seamless shopping experience. Moreover, now your customers can shop using their smartphones from anywhere in the world, meaning increased availability of goods and services and the potential for expanding the audience and increasing revenue.

Personalized engagement

mCommerce and mobile apps allow Magento businesses to stay connected with their customers, opening a new marketing channel. Sending push notifications and targeted deals and informing customers about special offers and sales based on customers' interests and purchase history increases users' engagement and loyalty to the brand.

Better data collection and analysis

mCommerce features allow Magento stores to analyze user data, including geolocation, preferable language settings, shopping history, and search requests, as well as some demographic metrics. This information helps implement customer segmentation and create more personalized offerings and targeted marketing campaigns.

More payment options

mCommerce brings the convenience of mobile wallets to credit cards and cash-on-delivery payments through popular options like Apple Pay/Samsung Pay/Google Pay, PayPal, Amazon Pay, Visa Checkout. Now, customers can purchase goods and services fast and conveniently on the go.

Now, let's conduct an all-around overview of mobile app capabilities and benefits for e-commerce businesses, drawing on the example of the Magento platform.

Magento Mobile Commerce — App or Website?

To make it short, having both will give you the most fascinating results regarding revenue, customer acquisition, and marketing opportunities.

 Magento web application

Traditional online shopping, like sitting in front of your PC and scrolling online, is a great option but not the only one. Your website must be mobile-friendly to attract more traffic and sales from mobile device users. This includes characteristics such as fast page load, good performance, convenient checkout, and adaptability to various screen sizes. It is not necessary to develop a separate mobile app; a Magento website optimization might be enough. Responsive design is the key.

Magento mobile application

As e-commerce mobile apps are on the rise, providing smooth customer experience and appealing design, you can consider building one for your business. The main difference between the Magento mobile application is that it has unique functionalities, such as push notifications, personalization on mobile, and can use device features.

Magento Store Benefits in mCommerce

Magento is one of the most used platforms for quickly creating mobile-ready websites. Its robust advantages allow for running a successful m-commerce project and boost mobile shopping.

Mobile-friendly checkout: Magento provides a seamless mobile-optimized checkout process and smooth integrations with popular payment gateways to turn the growing mobile traffic into increasing conversion rates.

Responsive themes: Using Magento development services is a fast and affordable way to build an m-commerce website thanks to the built-in responsive design themes. Magento templates are fully customizable, meaning you can create your design concept from scratch to attract your target audience.

Progressive web apps: Magento works hard to develop this technology, which allows a website to look and behave like a native mobile app. The platform offers to build appealing mobile shopping experiences with PWA Studio.

Security and reliability: Magento pays attention to the safety of the users' data by updating the security patches and protecting the digital environment for eCommerce activities.

NEKLO, a qualified Magento development company, is ready to build a Magento mobile application for your web store. We provide high-class custom mobile application development services to help you provide your customers with excellent shopping experiences!

How to Make a Magento Website Mobile-Friendly?

The stats data shows that 57% of users won't recommend a business with a poorly designed mobile site. Running a mobile-optimized website has proved to be highly effective in terms of raising the number of purchases.

How To Make a Website Mobile Friendly

Consider the following 5 “to-do’s” for successful mobile optimization:

Create a responsive website

Responsive design allows for displaying every piece of website content correctly, with no issues, no matter the size and form. Compatibility with handheld devices improves the readability of texts and makes navigation mobile-friendly. Consider using modern Magento themes to improve the responsiveness and overall look of your store.

Ensure fast website load times

When it comes to mobile shopping, page speed is essential. Even a 1 sec delay in page load time reduces page views by 11%.

  • To speed up your website's load time, try:
  • Compressing the images;
  • Applying "flat" design;
  • Using a cache plugin;
  • Implementing AMP protocols to ensure consistency on all devices.

Provide a seamless checkout process

Statista reports that 70.19% of online orders are abandoned at checkout. To avoid cart abandonment, provide your mobile users with a fast and intuitive checkout process:

  • Make sure the buttons are seen;
  • Minimize the number of fields to fill out;
  • Introduce a one-page checkout.

‍Avoid distractive pop-ups and ads

‍Customers hate to waste time closing pop-ups. Google also does not really favor websites full of ads and is unlikely to place your e-commerce shop high in search results. Instead, useful mobile apps send push notifications or offer in-app messaging as a good alternative, allowing you to present special offers, new features, and news.

Use modern Magento themes

As Magento 2's mobile friendliness has already increased compared to the previous version, there is no limit to improvements. One good option for reaching new horizons of responsiveness is choosing a fast, customizable, and lightweight theme. The Magento 2 Hyva theme has been gaining popularity in recent years due to its seamless and fast work on devices.

How Magento Mobile App Development Benefits Businesses?

  • Voice and image search capabilities facilitate product search and app navigation, increasing customer shopping experience.
  • Data synchronization allows integration throughout multiple e-commerce stores, delivering better information management and analytics.
  • Multi-language and currency support broaden the customer base, ensuring no barriers to a seamless shopping experience.
  • Magento mobile application marketing strategies, such as implementing loyalty programs, gamification, and in-app promotions, increase customer engagement and revenue.
  • Responsiveness and fast load ensure that more customers get the best of your app's design and performance, leading to decreased cart abandonment and bounce rates and higher customer retention.

How to Get a Magento Mobile App in 3 Ways

Well, after reading about these beautiful and useful features mobile app development can bring, you probably wonder how exactly you can get one. There are several ways to go.

Custom development

Custom Magento mobile application development enables you to provide your users with the best mobile experience. It gives you the freedom that the solutions mentioned below cannot offer: you can decide on the app's design, features, and integrations and create exactly what you intended.

Whether building native or cross-platform ass, you can consult Magento mobile app development company on the details of how to bring your project to life.

Cost: depends on the mobile operating system and the type of app you want to create, but it starts at $50,000.

Mobile app builder

Mobile app builder is ready-made software that allows the creation of native iOS or Android Magento mobile applications. It is a fine solution for non-tech-savvy users, as it is easy to use and quick to develop and launch. The pre-built mobile app would be tailored to your requirements. The product provider most commonly offers app maintenance, updates, and support.

Cost: while some providers provide prices only on request, the common one-time payment might be $300-$600.

Magento PWA development

Being not exactly a mobile app, PWA technology allows your Magento store to look and feel like a native app for the customers. It provides a smooth and responsive experience on mobile devices, has faster time-to-market compared with custom development, and is more affordable. PWAs can be indexed by search engines, unlike native apps, which benefits your store's discoverability.

Cost: varies, beginning at $10,000.

5 Best Magento Mobile App Builders

  1. SimiCart

SimiCart features personalized messages, voice and image search, a broad array of supported payments, and a multilanguage/currency store view. The final app is fast, has a flexible catalog structure, and easily integrates with other systems. The price starts at $299.

  1. AppJetty

AppJetty lets you create and launch your native Magento app for mobile devices in just a week. It boasts a dynamic layout, multilanguage support, one-page checkout, payment gateway support, and the ability to manage custom products. The price is available upon request.

  1. Webkul

Webkul enables native app creation that is well-configured and easy for admins to use. The apps are GDPR-compliant, support default Adobe Commerce shipping methods, and are available for all product types. The price starts at $299.

  1. Magetop

Magetop also offers native app creation with enriched features and a straightforward setup. This Magento mobile app builder's main characteristics include seamless integration of payment gateways, the ability to incorporate multiple languages, an easy-to-use interface, and multiple communication tools. The price starts at $299.

  1. Magestore

Magestore offers a quick app builder for Android and iOS. It has pre-built themes, a voice search feature, field control and address autofill, a dashboard, and various payment options. Unfortunately, pricing information is available only upon request.

Wrapping Up

Mobile commerce is gaining popularity, and investigating mobile development might be wise. Magento is a great example of mastering web and mobile applications for user convenience and business prosperity. While having a mobile-friendly web store, you can also develop a mobile app in several ways and reap both benefits.

NEKLO can help you expand your brand's digital presence through our custom application development services. If you need help with native or cross-platform mobile app development or want to launch a Magento mobile app, contact us through the form on our website.

Our team will help you to get it up and running.

Before You Go

Magento extensions can widen the capabilities of your existing Magento store even further. Our team has crafted a drag-and-drop online merchandising tool that provides visual product sorting. Try it to make your e-commerce and m-commerce experience dynamic and hassle-free.