Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Live Mobile Support Apps…What Retail Store Owners Could Be Missing!

Consumer buying behavior is a complex aspect that needs to be analyzed in-depth by e-store owners in order to convert leads into sales and one way this can be achieved is through live mobile support. The point of decision is certainly one of the most important stages in the consumer buying life cycle. 

Retail businesses failure to close their sales partly because the aspect of point-of-decision is not addressed conclusively when business owners and marketers engage with consumers. An augmented retail experience is lacking among many e-retail stores that can help influence the buying behavior of the consumer.

If a customer has not visited or completed the shopping cart this doesn’t mean that he or she does not want to buy the goods or services. There is a “connection” between the seller and the buyer that is missing. This is what needs to be derived and augmented in order to turn that prospective buyer into a real customer by completing a sale. 


As smartphones sales proliferate, customers are using these mobile phones to research product information, potential purchases, prices of goods, as well as ratings and products reviews.

Surveys show that smartphones are currently influencing 5.1% of sales generated annually by retail stores. This translates to close to $159 billion of sales forecasts in the year 2012. According to a research by Deloitte Consulting, it is expected that the smartphones growth retail sales to 19%, representing $689 billion by 2016. 


The most challenging aspect for retail store owners is that many do not know how to leverage live mobile support in the overall customer engagement. The consumer needs to be more engaged at the point of decision in the buying life cycle. The way in which smartphones users will be able to make buying decisions will largely depend on the kind of information they get about products and services they are willing to buy. 

Retail store owners are examining the consumer cross-channel shopping behavior in a simple way yet this is a complex phenomenon. Consumers’ behavior has changed significantly and in order to be able to make these customers buy your products and services, you need to have the right tools for mobile apps and software products.

The overall decision making process of the buyer differs mainly on the consumer, shopping trip and also the point where the consumer is in his or her shopping journey. Despite these differences on the buying decision, the bottom-line is that the more information e-retail store owners provide to the consumers, the more influential they will be in converting leads to sales. 

Consumers are now tech-savvy meaning that they want knowledge and more credible information before they can close a sale. If a retail store integrates the Near Field Communication- NFC supported mobile phone attributes into their retail apps, this can greatly help at the crucial point of decision of the consumer.

This is a key element, which helps feed the consumer with access to relevant products information in real time meaning that customers get ready hand information about products they want to buy. The apps have to be customized to create high profile brand image. With the apps, consumers are able to view product ratings and reviews, which are a major determinant factor in influencing their buying decision.


Because software compatibility is a major challenge, the live mobile support apps you integrate in your e-retail store show also be compatible with most of the smartphones. With branded and easily customizable apps templates, the consumer can easily navigate and view as well as read the information they want about products whether it is product details, what other say about the experience they have had after using the products or the simplicity in payment process.


Businesses are also afraid of installing too many apps in their systems and this means that with software application that does not require downloads and installations, this relieves the e-store owners the stress of economizing their limited systems network storage capacity. By simply touching the live mobile support apps tag, products information is readily displayed and this drives the consumer buying quest to closing his or sale.


Considering the importance of social signals in today’s internet marketing, the e-stores can greatly benefit from Twitter “Tweets”, Facebook “Likes” and LinkedIn “Inshare” information that is shared from friends and relatives through augmented shopping experience software. This further complements the consumers’ shopping experience giving them the confidence to buy the products.


In essence, businesses need to apply cross-device digital and retail marketing strategies in order to be able to exhaustively generate leads and then convert the leads into sales. The smartphone apps that offer localized information, products details and price comparison and transparency coupled with easy shopping cart attributes will be able to convert more leads into sales.


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