Recent studies in the US [1,2] emphasize the importance of mobile for retail. The numbers speak for themselves:
- 61% of online purchases were made via mobile
- 60% of consumers shopped via a mobile app
If you think about it for a minute it makes absolutely sense: people use their mobile all the time. If your business has not yet a mobile App it’s time to get one. But that’s only the start. Equipped with your mobile App you must actively push information to your customers, preferably information that are of interest for your customers. For example, if you are a bookstore, a good starting point is to give customers a choice of categories for which they get updates. Typically, you’ll find candidates in your online store. Since online stores tend to have many categories you must minimize the number of available choices for your customer in your App. Simplicity is key. For instance, our customer Morawa has limited the categories in the App to 10, the online store has 20.
Also, a good practise is to have a at least one or two weekly recurring updates (Push notifications) that remind the user of your business. It depends what kind of business you are, here some examples from our customer Morawa:
- Book of the week
- Audiobook of the week
- Recommendation of the week
- New arrivals
- Weekly Besteller List
Of course then there are holiday specials. There are occasions when people are more likely to buy your products or use your services. For bookstores, the beginning of the holiday season is important: many people buy books that they plan to read during their vacation. So, you can start send out holiday book recommendations in the weeks before the holiday season starts. The same for back to school and of course Christmas.
The best is to make a checklist for the whole year and to program your App content system accordingly. This gives you a healthy baseline of active customers of your App and increases your sales.
Sources
[1] Google/Ipsos, Omnichannel Holiday Study, November 2018 – January 2019, US, n=5,543 online Americans 18+ who shopped in the past two days. [Occasional: Holiday Shopping Occasions for Shoppers Who Have Conducted Activity in P48H and Made An Online Purchase (n= 3918)
[2] Google/Ipsos, Omnichannel Holiday Study, November 2018 – January 2019, US, n=5,543 online Americans 18+ who shopped in the past two days
