Design your retail mobile app with the best user experience

If your business doesn’t have a dedicated mobile application, it might lose its visibility impacting profitability and customer loyalty. Another reason to have your own retail app is that every small and medium sized business now has its own retail app which creates a stiff competition for you.

Developing a dedicated retail app has numerous benefits:

• The surfing, or you can say navigation, is better on a retail app compared to websites.
• Owning a small retail outlet includes human labors of displaying and arranging the products, having an app saves the small and medium retailers from this pain.
• Helps you build a stronger bond with customers by offering loyalty bonus and discounts.
• Retail apps display all the items for sale on one platform.
• Apps increase customer satisfaction and build brand loyalty by allowing them to review the product before buying it.

Mobile apps for the retail business are becoming a necessity for all the businesses in this digitized market. Many research companies have done surveys on the popularity of mobile apps and the results are astounding. As per the surveys, most of the customers would rather shop or browse their favorite brand on mobile devices as that is the most convenient way for them in this world of mobility. Plus the unique user interfaces and the bonus points that customers get after shopping on mobile apps are one factor that makes the use of an app for shopping seem more attractive to the customer.

Improve the mobile shopping experience

Success of your app or website depends on the user experience, especially when your website or app gets only 5 seconds approximately to impress a user.

Think about users!

The typical activity that users do on any retail app or website is as follows:

• Browsing through products
• Exploring the products
• Completing purchase

The design and structure of any retail app and mobile site must focus on the consumers’ needs, it should support them throughout their shopping experience.

During the purchasing process, consumers do get frustrated sometimes, maybe because they are asked for signing up even before exploring the app or the site and sometimes it is because of the colossal checkout forms and dearth of payment options.

Many companies should counter these consumer inconveniences by improving the interface for an easier form completion, providing location services and enabling users to pay with third-party payment providers.

Mobile commerce is all about engaging the customers and providing them with an ultimate shopping experience.

Pursuit and Quest

As we know and we have seen, making a good first impression is a crucial factor because once a consumer leaves your app or site, there are plethora of retail apps that are ready to beat you down. Give the user a smooth experience, be it browsing, purchasing or customer support.

Below are a few factors that every developer should keep in mind while creating a retail app for the best user experience.

• Loading Time

  Shoppers who use mobile devices for their purchasing activity have very high expectations as most of them do their shopping activity when they are traveling or are out of their home or office spaces, a slow loading site or app means one lost customer. Use speed testing tools for understanding the improvements and make use of the latest technologies for reducing the size, which will help in improving performance.

• Don’t rush user registration

  Users will quite often neglect your site or app if personal information is asked upfront. Food delivery and cab services are exceptional cases. Only ask for the information if it is necessary, you can provide a guest checkout to users which will ease them in your site or app.

• Be on the same page as the user

  Using unknown terminology may confuse users and it will prevent your products to be discoverable by users. E.g. don’t use the term camera glasses when you are providing lenses.

• Effective indexes

  While searching for products on an app or a site, users expect the search results to be as precise as Google’s. Use functions such as spelling auto-corrections, root word recognition, predictive text and smart word suggestions while entering texts. Using these functions, you will be able to reduce user error, which in turn will speed up the search process and keep the conversion rate higher.

• Avoid promotions where you can

  Promotions and ads might overshadow the content they're next to making it very inconvenient for users to accomplish purchasing tasks. These full-page promotions that hide content prompt users to install an app which annoys many users.

Product details and reviews

For a user it is very important to understand the product information easily. The design of your product pages should convert shoppers into consumers.

• Elaborated product detail

  Specification lures customers as they get impressed with the details provided by the retailer such as: stock availability, sizes, color choices, descriptions, photos, videos and more. Product details should be intuitive, so design the app in that way.

• Don’t zoom past your users

  Let the users control how much zoom is required to satisfy them about the product. Do keep in mind that users hate it when the image partially goes off-screen while zooming. Let them have a field day with the zoom feature.

• Highlight customer attention

  Show the customers how much they are saving on a purchase, display the sale and original price as a comparison. If needed, highlight the discounted price or percentage to make it visible to the users’ eye.

• In-store availability

  Allow the users to see the in-store availability of any product, users should be able to select a preferred store and see the availability of that product.

• Shipping costs and delivery dates

  Mention the shipping charges and estimated time of delivery of the product as it helps them in estimating the cost of delivery versus the delivery time, and we all know customers always expect expedited and cost free shipping.

• Reviews

  When making a purchase decision, a fellow shopper review of the product makes a huge difference for a user. Shoppers generally will ignore a product whose reviews are not at all available. Post verified reviews from previous customers so that it helps you boost confidence about your site and product.

• Customer-generated content

  Allow your customers to post pictures, contents and aggregated data on your app about the purchases that they have made. It helps in building trust with your unregistered customers as they can see the real way the product has worked for others.

• Opportune products

  After the user adds any product to the shopping cart, or is making a payment, mention the replacement or relevant recommended products, many customers appreciate the add-on product option as they don’t have to waste time searching for it again on the app or site.

Checkout and payments

Mobility has advanced to another level, many users are using their smartphone devices to fulfill their shopping needs. But the question is: how many people are using the devices to complete the purchases?

Let’s guide you through, so that you can give your customers a better user experience.

• Ease product browsing

  Do not play your upper hand and push the user to the checkout page as soon as they have added a product to the cart. Give them a feedback that the order is awaiting them in the cart till they enjoy some more shopping. Use this timeframe for recommending the user with products related to the items placed in the cart.

• Allow editing

  Allow the users to edit the cart list as sometimes they place items to the card by accident or order wrong quantity. Remember they are enjoying your app’s design so a few mistakes will be made, give them a better experience with the editing option.

• Deals, coupons and promotions!

  Users do not like to hunt for deals and promotions, so instead of making them do the hard work, provide the deals from your side, resurface the promotions, deals and coupons on the checkout page.

• Allow guest purchase

  A first-time user will prefer the option of guest checkout. But you can promote the benefit of tracking order, receiving special offers by creating a profile, during or after the checkout process.

• Built trust

  Users are always worried about the frauds or hacks that are prevailing. Mobile apps and sites without a security indicator make a negative impression on the user, so it is necessary for you to follow the best data security practices.

• Multiple 3rd party payment options

  Users love it when paying online is made easy for them by allowing them to pay via multiple payment systems.

• Detailed purchase summary

  Provide a detailed transaction summary of the purchase including the price break-down, item and quantity ordered. Many times users realize their mistakes after the payment has been done. In such case provide clear instructions on how to correct it.

Frictionless shopping

Consumers have started using the mobile devices to buy something; they expect the experience to be frictionless, so your emphasis should be on making the shopping experience of the consumer a smooth one.

• Consumer-friendly forms

  Design screens that can interpret multiple input formats and are compatible with how users enter their credentials. Ensure that the form fields are not obstructed from view by interface elements such as the keyboard. Automatically advance each field up the screen as the user completes the form fields.

• Frictionless password authentication

  Users become annoyed when they need to go through a laborious, multi-level task of setting up a password. Minimize the number of steps required or use different authentication methods such as third-party login or fingerprint touch login.

• Ask for permissions

  Apps should ask for permissions in context and explain the level of access that will be required.

• Customer service information

  Providing call information and email are good options as well as providing a customer chat, make the user comfortable as sometimes users do look for help while shopping, and if they don’t see any option of seeking help, it makes them negative about the after-sale service too, leading to abandonment.

• Highlight added values Added values like free shipping and deals should be repeated during the shopping experience as it will give a smooth experience to the user by not hunting for the deals and promotion on the site.

Act upon it today! Have complete assurance of a better tomorrow

You need to design your app in such a way that it becomes a need for your customers. For building a brand name and driving sales, you will need an app that connects well with your customers and eases them into the shopping experience. Build better mobile sites and apps, start from today.

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