During this Pandemic situation, online shopping has experienced more growth. Mobile applications help in improving the shopping experience. Mobile applications are the future of all business but this Covid 19 Pandemic sped up its reach. By maintaining local guidelines and social distancing mobile apps help the business to deliver the best shopping experience. The problems that are faced by many retailers during this pandemic situation are solved by apps.
3 top ways how mobile apps improve the online shopping experience during the Covid-19
Encourage seamless pickup
During this pandemic BOPIS – Buy Online, Pickup in Store has seen more huge growth. The convenience factor will be lost if people don’t get their ordered items quickly after arriving at the shop. Mobile applications make customers enter when they reach the shop and also let the shop owners know that their customers are on the way and estimate the time of their arrival. Instead of making calls to check the arrival of customers, mobile apps can automatically check the customers in, making a good experience for both the employees and customers.
There are many apps available in the app store, where the app gets the information from the customers and automatically checks them into the store. For contactless delivery, the app also has an option to bring the order directly to the customer’s vehicle. After the customer reaches the parking, by a single tap they can get the ordered items.
Empower Employees
Due to this pandemic store employees have been added with additional responsibilities such as maintaining social distancing and controlling store capacity. In order to empower employees with the new responsibilities, mobile applications serve as one of the powerful tools. Many stores today use employee apps to track and manage customer entrances and exits. Virtual queue options are also made through mobile apps so that customers can enter the store once they receive the notification. Other stores like daycare, restaurants make their customers wait inside their car until their turn comes.
Apps make employees check the inventory instead of rushing and checking into the storeroom, just with one or two taps everything can be done through mobile apps. Apps alert the employees when the items are running out on the floor.
Improving the customer experience
Customers want to be more efficient when they go to the store. Due to this pandemic, people try to limit their exposure. Apps make customers know the item location exactly. Many apps allow customers to search for the products through text or images. Scan options are also made available in many applications to pay at self. Contactless shopping experiences are provided only by the use of mobile apps.
Ways to create an effective app
• Improve your sales through Mobile apps during CovidIn many cases, companies create mobile applications based upon their needs and thoughts and not what actually the customer is looking for. Create an app for your customers, make research on what your customers are looking for, get feedback from them.
• Make sure the data is accurate. One of the major problems customers face is ordering a product through a mobile app and getting to know the item is not available only after reaching the shore. Inventory management is becoming more challenging due to the increased mobile app orders. Many effective mobile apps use real-time data to provide updated results.
• Keep everything simple as much as possible. Don’t make your customers work harder. Make sure all the functions and features are incorporated into a single app and remove unwanted things.
• Include notification features, so that the customers are able to know what is happening in their order. This notification feature can help them to know their order status, changes, and much more. Give your customers the easy way to access everything, providing them with the push notification options rather than opening and refreshing the app to see the notification.
For both employees and customers, mobile apps create a safer experience. During this Pandemic situation developing a mobile app for your business with multifunctional functions helps to move forward.