Why eCommerce is incomplete without the Mobile?

A virus taught that the world can survive and thrive digitally as well. From simple grocery shopping to life-transforming online degrees from an overseas university, a parallel universe emerged behind the screen. Many people, young and old, took to the digital foray as fish takes to water.

Everyone embraced digital payments to maintain social distancing. Many eCommerce companies took advantage of the situation and started targeting D2C customers via paid channels. A recent McKinsey study noted that four out of five Americans used a digital payment mode in 2021. Plus, there was a sudden upsurge in the use of cryptocurrency and Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) mode. By 2021, 76% of adults worldwide had an account with a bank, financial institution, or a mobile transaction facilitator app, compared to 68% in 2017.

The Changed Dynamics

Heightened CAC

Lower demand for the paid channels meant higher customer acquisition costs. With the surge in eCommerce, the global players started fighting to grab a larger share of the customer base. Consumers had spent almost $65 billion by mid-2021 on eCommerce mobile app shopping, up by approximately 25% in 2020.

The revolutionary privacy policy changes brought in by Apple Inc, made the Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) collection optional. This meant customer activities could not be tracked by apps like Facebook and Instagram. As users became more privacy conscious, the share of tracked customers declined from 73% in early 2021 to 32% by June end. That’s not all. CAC skyrocketed by 200% for tracked and 155% for untracked users. As a result, 65% of marketers started believing that the rising CAC is a priority that needs to be dealt with immediately.

Since creating unforgettable customer experiences is the solution, here’s what eCommerce companies can do about it.

Creating Engaging Customer Experiences

Retain the Customers

Marketing enthusiasts abide by the principle that a 5% boost in customer retention can raise the bottom line by up to 95%. Plus, acquiring a new buyer can cost up to 25 times more than retaining one. Still, only 18% of companies invest in customer retention.

To get more out of the current user base, you can design loyalty and membership programs that keep them hooked to your brand.

Personalized Experience

“Dear Customer, please share your feedback.”

Or, “Hi Paul, Did you get complimented for that red t-shirt you bought from us a week ago?”

Clearly, the latter is more personalized.

Customization is vital for retention. As per a McKinsey report, 71% of customers expect brands to target them with personalized tools. More importantly, 76% of customers dislike being targeted with a generic approach. You can draw up to 40% more revenue with customized targeting. That’s why tailored emails and notifications draw immediate attention compared to generic ones.

Saving customer preferences from previous purchases and using that data to send notifications about new arrivals, discounts and offers are regular tricks that work wonders. Ultimately, 78% of customers are more likely to make repeat purchases and spread the word about a brand that offers a personalized experience. And customization of the mobile experience seems critical since everyone spends more time on their handheld devices than laptops.

A Platform for Customer Opinion

Your customers like to talk about their purchases, so you might as well give them a platform to voice their opinions freely. Although this could go either way for your brand, users highly appreciate it. Building a safe community for addressing their concerns can gain you brownie points. It ensures customers come to your platform to voice their thoughts instead of bad-mouthing your brand on social media.

And then, these online communities can generate 6469% ROI on your marketing efforts! Above all, the smaller mobile screen does wonders for these customer experience tricks.

The Mobile Difference

When you need to shop online, do you turn on your laptop or just open the app or website on your mobile?

By January 2021, over 5.22 billion people were mobile phone users spending more than four hours daily on the device. Most eCommerce companies adopt the mobile-first route because they generate around 61% of the website traffic. An Insider Intelligence report predicts that mCommerce retail sales will double by 2025.

The mobile experience creates loyalty and stickiness for customers to return to your brand. Here’s what you can expect from a mobile app.

Retain Customers

MCommerce mobile apps can drive loyalty and membership programs with easy access and rapid resolution capacity. The easier your app is to use, the better the customer experience and, thus, the higher the chances of retention and repeat sales. On the other hand, 32% of customers uninstall a difficult-to-use app.

An app is known to generate 157% more conversions as compared to a mobile website. With well-timed notifications, you can prompt your customers to check in the app at least one of the many times they fiddle with their phones every hour.

Moreover, a mobile app gives users the comfort of ordering something at the last minute or adding it to the cart again when they forget an item. Access to the mobile is more potent than opening a laptop to do the same. Higher the comfort, the deeper the customer loyalty.

A Personal Channel

There are many instances of creative personalization via a mobile app. For example, do you listen to playlists customized by music apps, especially for you? Naturally, that experience flows more smoothly in a mobile app than on a desktop website. But of course, many music service providers operate via only an app.

For online shopping, when your customers relocate, the app picks up a change in location of order placement and prompts services accordingly. A 24x7 access to the mobile app ensures that you don’t lose the customer due to a geographical change in their base.

Build Brands

An average adult in the US spends nearly four hours on mobile phones daily. The mobile world is clearly more immersive than TV and laptops. That’s why mobile ads promote your brand better. You can create personalized emails, notifications, in-app text, and video ads to connect with your audience. Above all, attractive social media content draws the maximum crowd, and only the mobile can empower that.

Monitor Buyer Behavior

Around 50% of the European shoppers in the Netherlands, UK, Denmark, Italy or Norway buy from mobile apps. These apps can store and pick your customers' data from previous orders and offer them a single-click purchase mechanism, thus saving time. But more importantly, it gives you complete visibility of buyer behavior.

A mobile-focused marketing strategy can shrink the CAC and increase the Average Order Value. Besides, transactions are easier done through a mobile app with access to different payment modes like online wallets, net banking, credit/debit cards, and loyalty points through a single gateway.

So where were you reading this blog? On you mobile, we bet!