Mobile apps are big business for mobile app development companies. That is because apps play an important role in m-commerce - the purchase and delivery of goods through mobile electronic devices. Every business is investing in an app in order to reach their customers and M-commerce is estimated at US$230 billion. A great number of apps have been developed in order that clients benefit from e-commerce and m-commerce. However, as each brand develops its own app, they forget that users cannot handle too many apps on their smartphones, one for each brand. What users need is a one-stop-shop type of app that offers a wide range of products within one app and is linked to other apps and personalizes their shopping experience. This is where Shoppi comes in.

Shoppi allows a user to interact with other shoppers to get best deals. It integrates the social aspect of shopping in which a consumer interacts with other consumers. This is the closest thing to traditional shopping.

While companies like eBay, Etsy, Amazon and AliExpress already leverage on e-commerce, m-commerce helps them to extend the reach of their businesses, and can potentially add huge numbers of customers. Therefore app development companies are playing a huge role in commerce. The market research company App Annie established that in 2016 the world spent 900 billion hours using apps, downloaded 90 billion apps, on both the Apple iTunes app store and Google Play, making billions of dollars for publishers and Google. (USA Today). So definitely people have adopted apps big time and the developers are reaping huge benefits while enhancing retail businesses.

Advantages of M-commerce

M-commerce as a business model started a few years ago and, as shown from the figures above, it has great benefits for the app development industry, for the businesses that adopt m-commerce and for consumers. Here are some of the benefits.

Rising Revenue for App Development Businesses

As more and more businesses adopt e-commerce as a business model, demand for app development keeps increasing and app development businesses make a lot of money.

Quick Purchases

Shopping through smartphones and other mobile devices is quick and safe for consumers and they can do it in the privacy of their own homes and offices.

Rising Revenue for all Businesses

With more people using m-commerce for their purchases, businesses like amazon.com and eBay and even smaller businesses, increase their sales.

Easy Connection to Customers

Now businesses can connect directly with customers through instant and enticing push notifications. Notifications of offers and rewards initiate customer engagement and have been found to increase sales by 50%.

Improved Insight to Customer Data

Mobile apps enable companies to capture customer data such as age, sex, location and purchase history which help them to provide preferred searches to the users. With the right customer information companies can make more appropriate offers to each customer, which customers are most likely to follow up and buy.

Content Tailored to Customers

Apps can capture each customer’s likes and comments on social media, items searched and special interests. Using this information, businesses can provide each customer with content that is tailored to their preferences. This can lead to sales.

Mobile Apps are Easy Marketing

An app is an effective and affordable marketing tool because users browse through an app and spread word of mouth for the brand and maintaining an app is cheaper than maintaining a website.

Easy Sharing on Social Media

Mobile apps make it easier for shoppers to share their buying on social media which may entice others to buy the same products.

Key Features of Mobile Apps

The table below shows what all mobile apps have in common.

Latest Trends in M-Commerce

M-commerce keeps growing through the following techniques:

• Augmented reality
• Mobile image recognition
• Chatbots
• Virtual reality
• Integrated payment options
• Voice/predictive search
• Video content
• Near field communication enabled payment

More than a billion people use smartphones. M-commerce has made shopping easy for those users through smartphones which is why mobile shopping is a growing trend. The number of e-commerce and m-commerce apps is also growing, which means growing business for app development companies.

Now shopping is becoming more and more personalized. Shoppi is a good example of an app that personalizes a user’s shopping from search to buying to chatting with the shopping community. It gives the user the best content that matches their personality. Shoppi can be downloaded from the app store or Google play for Android or iOS. Best of all, any business can use Shoppi instead of developing a new app that will overwhelm consumers.