The weight of Apps in marketplaces´ strategy
Jordi Ordóñez
29/06/2018
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Mobile is the key to digital business. Look at the importance that Apps have earned within the strategy of marketplaces with these examples.
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Why Amazon or Aliexpress opt to use their own Mobile applications? What is the advantage they find? We are going to analyse the importance of Apps within the strategy of marketplaces.
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Mobile weighs very much
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This is a fact we all have been adapting to progressively. We have told you for a while about how mCommerce is changing everything, so it is vital to hit hard on these devices if we want our business works.Just take a look at the overall revenue from transactions made through mobile and the huge projection it has according to Statista.
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In all the metrics and KPIs for eCommerce, we can see a similar evolution. Either in traffic, recurring visits or in usage time compared to desktop that reachs the double (according to this report by Comscore).
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The importance of Apps from the marketplaces´Apps
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Given what we have seen, we do not have to hold a Stanford Master's degree to realise what mobile represents - and what it will represent in the medium term - in terms of business for Amazon and others.Why going for a native application? In the end, that is an extra development and more headaches, what has helped them increase their ecosystem?Users convert better on Apps and recurrence is greater, hence, they insist us to install them in the serps from the phone and the own mobile versions. They seem to be very sure about it (and that is only made through data) but it makes sense because:
- Usability is always much more polished when we work in a more or less closed environment. It is true that there is a huge atomization of screen sizes on Android, but the user´s intention and the mechanics are the same.
- Native functionalities: from camera to GPS, phones open the range of options very much. A very simple example is the possibility to make calls to the customer service team from the same terminal or, something more advanced, such as Amazon App which allows to use the Smartphone's camera to scan a barcode.
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- Recurrence: If we put the fact of being always available and logged in together with our own usage routine (idle times, waits or travel...) we find users who access more often, being more susceptible to the buy on impulse. In the case of Amazon, they also reinforce the pressure on Prime users as they are the most profitable.
- The amount of data collected is simply huge. Thanks to the traceability of mobile phones you can set usage patterns that can lead Big Data in e-commerce to a new level.
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Differences between mobile and Apps versions
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#1 – Amazon
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The truth is that if we compare both versions there seems not to be too much difference.
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On the left we have the App. The first thing that stands out is merely a visual comparison: as the browser interface is removed then we have more space. It is also important to highlight that the menu disappears and becomes the classic burger at the top left (typical exemple of mobile usability).So, we have 5 items in both, but they can be more specific in the offer because, but remember, here you are logged in by default. Let´s see:
- Main Banner: in the App we can see a product that uses remarketing.
- They sell the new service for companies in both of them.
- Prime Now: in the absence of an App, Amazon has 2 different for Prime users as it is the case.
- Sales: Clear CTA without images of happy people, a red button and that is all.
- A featured sale.
If we do the same with a product seen on both platforms, you will notice that there is almost no difference because the same information is shown although the photo is slightly larger in the App and gives some more information above the scroll because it saves some pixels.Conclusion: from a formal point of view, the application does not represent anything revolutionary. It is more practical, but it is not so different substantially. Amazon is interested in that for strategic reasons and those native functionalities of the phone( let´s highlight the integrated code search box), in other words, what we mentioned in the previous points. -
#2 - Aliexpress
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Let´s see how Chinese Aliexpress does and which are the differences betwwen the App and the mobile version of the website (in this case,the word “version” is already in a m type subdomain).
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Here the App wins by a mile. First, as a matter of editorial design and cleaning. The chaos that we see on the website is quite remarkable and adding the link to download the application on the top (weird, right?), menu and the legal notice, does not help.Navigation is a bit unclear in both cases, but while it is solved by a box at the bottom in the App, in the browser version supposes another level of navigation in the first third of the screen, as well as a remarkable loss of importance of the search box.Talking about the search engine, we must highlight the option of using the camera to search for products similar to those photographed, not only by QR.
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It is clear: marketplaces bet seriously in Apps within their strategy and their reasons are clear. Would you do it in your eCommerce? Do you think it makes sense in a store?
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Images | Unsplash, Aliexpress and Amazon.