March 27, 2024

What Is mCommerce in 2023? Benefits of Mobile Shopping Apps

Nadya Bakhur

Researcher, Technical Writer

Mobile

mCommerce and mobile shopping apps development
March 27, 2024

What Is mCommerce in 2023? Benefits of Mobile Shopping Apps

Nadya Bakhur

Researcher, Technical Writer

Mobile

mCommerce and mobile shopping apps development

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

In our new article, we clarify a mobile commerce definition and give a gist of the key advantages of mobile apps for retail.

In addition, you will also learn why we consider Magento to be the best platform for ecommerce and mcommerce development.

Introduction

Consumers today are accustomed to using applications on smartphones and tablets to buy and sell goods. According to the data revealed by Statista, the number of smartphone users worldwide has already surpassed 6.3 billion and is forecasted to grow.

For business owners, engaging with the customers through mcommerce mobile apps has become a common factor impacting sales.

So let’s dig into some details and discover why mobile commerce is a new trend in the ecommerce sector.

Number of Smartphone Users Worldwide

What Is Mobile Commerce?

Mobile commerce or mcommerce is the concept that describes financial transactions made through a mobile device.

mCommerce is not just about “how to make money from mobile apps in retail”. 3 main types of m-commerce embrace:

  • Mobile payments: Any payment made with the help of mobile devices, including the popular mobile payment solutions like ApplePay or PayPal One-Touch;
  • Mobile banking: Similar to online banking in terms of functionality, but typically involves the use of a dedicated secure mobile app, provided by the bank;
  • Mobile shopping: Any type of purchase made through a handheld device, including mobile shopping apps, and websites optimized for mobile and social media.

What’s the Difference Between eCommerce and mCommerce?

Unlike ecommerce that refers to any financial transaction made through the Internet, mcommerce refers only to the 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 reported by Statista shows that mobile retail revenues amounted to 338.03 billion dollars in the USA at the end of 2020. Launching a mobile-friendly business becomes a good way to gain profit.

How Mobile Commerce App Development Benefits Businesses?

One of the main benefits the best mcommerce apps bring to the consumers is the convenience to shop on the go.

The key advantages of mcommerce for businesses include:

  • Improved customer experience: mcommerce provides higher load speed and familiar interactions which are the basis for the great shopping experience. In our article we suggest 7 ways to improve mobile apps customer support that will help you keep your users satisfied with the services and products you offer.
  • Personalized engagement: mcommerce allows businesses to stay connected with the customers by sending push-notifications and targeted deals
  • Location tracking: mcommerce allows companies to analyze the data provided by users, including geolocation, preferable language settings, etc;
  • More payment options: In our to-do list for the Magento checkout page we talked about the importance of the opportunity to select favourable 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 One-Touch, Amazon Pay, Visa Checkout.

Turning to the fresh 2022 research on mobile commerce and online shopping, done by Tidio, we’ve found and extracted a bunch of relevant data-driven information for you. Take a look:

  • Mobile commerce sales are projected to exceed $430 billion in 2022 and $710 billion in 2025;
  • Almost half (49%) of mobile users use smartphones to compare the pricing of products and services.

No surprise. Today it’s common, if you want to purchase something, mobile online shopping is a go-to experience.

What Is Magento Used For In mCommerce?

One of the most used platforms for the fast creation of mobile-ready websites is Magento. Its many advantages allow for running a truly successful mcommerce project and boost mobile shopping.

Below we provide our grounds.

  • 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 mcommerce website thanks to the built-in responsive design themes. Magento templates are fully customizable, meaning you can build your design concept from scratch to attract your target audience.  

  • Progressive web apps aka PWA

Our article concerning the point about why ecommerce brands shift to PWA reveals why PWA is called the future of ecommerce. Magento works hard to develop this technology allowing 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

What is the most important consideration of using financial or shopping apps on a mobile device? To keep sensitive data safe!

Magento pays attention to the safety of the users’ data by updating the security patches and protecting the digital environment for ecommerce activities.

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

How to Make a Website Mobile Friendly in eCommerce?

The stats data once provided by Formstack data collection company 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:

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. Provide a seamless checkout process

Statista reports that 88.05% of all online orders are abandoned at the checkout stage. To avoid cart abandonment, provide your mobile users with a fast and intuitive checkout process:

  • Make sure the buttons are clearly seen;
  • Minimize the number of fields to fill out;
  • Limit the checkout process to 5 steps.

4. Optimize images and videos

Catching visual elements may significantly slow down the page load speed. To stay fast, make sure the graphics are optimized to fit the screens of mobile devices. Videos are better to keep without autoplay function, not to annoy the customers with unwelcome sounds.

5. Avoid distractive pop-ups and ads

Customers hate to waste time on closing pop-ups. Google also is not really in favor of websites full of ads and is unlikely to place your ecommerce 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.

In addition to website optimization, don’t forget to apply some of the effective selling techniques to improve conversions. Our Digest #6 provides all the necessary information about upselling and cross-selling – the most useful selling methods for online retailers.

Wrapping Up

Smartphones are an inseparable part of our lives, pushing the development of mcommerce forward through the development of useful features. It provides the convenience of on-the-go financial operations and the flexibility of strategies for revenue streams.

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

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

Before You Go

The capabilities of your existing Magento store can be widened even further through Magento extensions. Our team has crafted a Drag and Drop online merchandising tool providing visual product sorting. Try it to make your ecommerce and mcommerce experience dynamic and hassle-free.