Mobile is a very powerful way for brands to connect with their customer base. However, as mobile is such a personal channel, it is very easy for marketers to make huge mistakes that will alienate a customer forever. Having been in the retail app development game for nearly 10 years, we’ve seen our fair share of mistakes in the industry. We thought we’d share them with you to spare you the stress of losing customers due to poorly designed apps.
1. NOT GOING NATIVE
Mark Zuckerberg once said the biggest mistake Facebook ever made was creating a hybrid mobile app instead of a native one. In an effort to invest less money in an app and save time, many retailers create apps that simply redirect the users to their mobile website. If you have gone to the trouble of creating an app, make sure it is native and provides the best experience possible for the customer. If customers wanted to use your mobile site through a browser, they would have. You also need to consider the platform that you are designing for and use the features that it provides. Your users expect your app to offer an experience that is distinct from your mobile and desktop sites. Creating an app that is fundamentally a launcher for a mobile website tells your customers that you don’t really understand mobile. It will quickly prompt them to search for an alternate app that is native.
2. LACK OF APP MARKETING
All too often companies believe that in order to compete in the mobile world, all they have to do is create an app and leave it at that. If users don’t know that you have an app, you won’t get many downloads – it’s as simple as that. Be proactive by placing a visible call to action on your mobile site encouraging users to download your app, citing faster operating speed and tailor-made layouts for the mobile screen. We also recommend launching your app on your website, your blog, in-store, to your email marketing list and on your social media channels. In order to promote downloads you could offer incentives for early adopters or offer an exclusive new product on the app only at first.
3. NOT RETAINING YOUR USERS
The biggest challenge for commerce apps, and apps in general, is retention. According to Apptentive, 90% of the people who download your app are gone within 6 months. In order to tackle this problem head-on, your app needs to offer value to users. Design your app to enrich the lives of your users, not just to facilitate sales. For instance, Mothercare, one of our retail clients, offers a range of features for its biggest customer segment – expecting mothers. These include a baby naming feature, lullabies and a pregnancy week-by-week guide. 43% of usage time is spent in the value-added features while 57% is spent in the shopping part of the app. This app enjoys huge repeat usage and has won multiple awards.
Additionally, you should generate reasons to engage with your customers through push notifications to remind them of your app’s presence on their device. These could include abandoned cart reminders or discounts, rewards, and other offers exclusive to the app.
4. POOR ONBOARDING
A primary reason that people stop using or delete apps shortly after download is through poor onboarding. You need your users to understand 1) the benefits of the app, 2) how to use it, and 3) what else can it be used for. Start out by thinking through the user experience from first launch and build a forward-thinking onboarding process that prevents confusion and frustration. Don’t just dump the new user straight into your app, say hello first. Create dismissible screens that welcome new users and give them a tour around the app’s features.
5. NOT GIVING USERS CONTROL
Mobile is a hugely personal platform. After successfully getting a new user to download your app, it’s vital to allow them as much control as possible to earn their trust. You should enable them to select communication preferences, the kinds of messages they’d like to receive and even assign tags to the types of product they’re interested in. By respecting the user’s preferences and communicating only the most pertinent information, you’re setting yourself up for a successful app/user relationship.
6. FORCING USERS TO CREATE A PROFILE
As useful as it is to collect user data based on profiles, it’s important to optimise your app for the customer, not for your analytics. Forcing users to sign up or create a profile before doing anything can be detrimental to your app’s success as many users prefer to pay via guest checkout. Let them use the app first and offer them the option to sign up for an account later. If they like your app and want to buy from it more quickly in future, they’ll likely be happy to sign up.
7. LACK OF PERSONALISATION
While you shouldn’t force your users to sign up for a profile, you should certainly offer them the option. When users have to fill in the same forms with the same information over and over it gets pretty tedious. Storing addresses, custom navigation, sizes, favourite brands and payment details will make your users’ lives that little bit easier and encourage them to use your app over other shopping methods. Additionally, you should provide an order history so users can look at what they have bought previously for their records.
Along similar lines, sending blanket, one-size-fits-all push notifications to all users is a bad idea. Customers expect messages on their phones to be tailored to their interests and preferences. Unless retailers are announcing a major sale event, messages should be personal.
8. IGNORING ANDROID
The majority of retail and commerce companies that have a transactional mobile app stop at iPhone. Although iPhone apps tend to be the most lucrative, the data shows that Android is the dominant smartphone operating system throughout Europe and the USA. The biggest area of retail app growth currently is in the Android operating system. Android apps allow access to some exciting innovations with things like Google Glass and Android Wear.
9. IGNORING OPERATING SYSTEM DIFFERENCES
The two most popular operating systems for retailers are iOS and Android and retailers tend to start with iOS. When designing an app for each operating system it can be tempting to opt for the simple way out and make them identical. However, by copying and pasting iOS onto Android, your app will not integrate as well with Android-specific navigation and look and feel. Some great Android-specific features include interactive notifications, lock screen widgets and live wallpaper.
10. OVER-COMPLICATED DESIGN
Above all, you need to prioritise user experience. With a messy, over-complicated design, your users will quickly lose patience and stop using or delete your app. There are many ways that your app can be too complicated, from over structured product trees to a slow and complex checkout process.
11. NOT ACTIVELY MANAGING YOUR APP
This might seem obvious, but it bears repeating. You can’t just develop an app and leave it at that – Apps need a bit of TLC. An app is an increasingly important channel in your multichannel strategy – you need to give it as much attention as your mobile site and other channels. Make sure you regularly update the app content and home screens and make (strategic) use of push notifications. If a new version of iOS or Android comes out, make sure that you update your apps to work on new operating systems, otherwise usage will plummet fast.
12. NOT MEASURING SUCCESS
When developing an app, make sure you go with a developer that can provide you access to detailed analytics. Ideally, you should have tracking tags on every page and be able to generate regular usage reports. By understanding where users spend time in your app, their navigation path, app crashes and where users drop off in your sales funnel, you will be able to make data-driven decisions on improvements for future builds. It is crucial to measure your success in order to facilitate a truly dynamic and effective mobile strategy.