How to Build an Apt Grocery App to Serve Your Mobile Shoppers
It's not just the large supermarkets and retailers who are creating an online presence. And why not when your tech-savvy target customers are online and looking for a convenient way to shop.
With the arrival of the smartphone, there aren't many retail sectors which haven't been affected by mobile commerce. From fashion to electronics to groceries, everything is being sold via smartphones. Time-poor customers are increasingly looking to shop for their groceries online. As many as 14% of Brits currently do all of their grocery shopping online, according to Mintel, while 31 percent of U.S. consumers are likely to buy groceries online. Cloud-based technologies have made it possible for even small local stores to have an online presence, and why not when your target customers are online and tech-savvy.
If your planning to invest in a mobile shopping app for your business integrating the following features would help you increase your orders and serve well to the tech-savvy shoppers.
1) Delivery Tracking - Allow your customers track their products by integrating a delivery tracking feature into your existing grocery app to build trust with your customers.
2) Easy Checkout Process - Four of the top five reasons users are bailing out of the checkout process stem from the logistics of entering information through desktop or mobile. Give your shopper a short and simple checkout process, and try to keep it to a one-step checkout process.
3) Review & Ratings - Incorporate reviews and rating to your online grocery store. It helps shoppers to buy products and builds trust among them and can increase repeat visitors and purchases.
4) Keyword Based Search - Grocery stores usually have a huge range of products, so giving customers a scope of advanced search options like keyword based product search would save them time. If you don't integrate this feature into your app, you might lose a huge set of customers.
5) Scan QR Codes - Give an option of scanning QR codes to speed up shopping process.
6) Create Shopping Lists - Let your shopper create their own grocery lists and save it for future shopping. Allow them to share this list via email and SMS.
7) Quick Add to Cart - Allow customers to add a product to cart from their listing screen. Also, ensure you make it easy for them to choose different quantities on the same screen rather than manual entry.
8) Scheduled Deliveries - Allow customers to choose a convenient delivery time.
9) Push Notifications - This feature will allow you to easily promote products and offers to your customer base while they're shopping.
10) Flexible Payments - Ensure that your mobile app is integrated with leading payment gateways and support major currencies in order to avoid cart abandonment.
11) Reorder Facility - Make it easy for customers to reorder items from previous orders without selecting the products again and again.
12) POS Integration - Give them an added advantage by integrating a POS (point-of-sale) system to manage inventories online and offline effectively.
There are numerous grocery brands that are succeeding by implementing unique features in their grocery apps. Below are just three such examples:
1) Amazon: Amazon’s implementing one-click payment method was a huge success online, as it makes purchases easier by saving the customers' card details and delivery address so they only have to enter a username and password and avoid entering the same details every time they shop thereby encouraging repeat purchases.
2) Wal-Mart: Wal-Mart came up with many innovations in his app helping his customers to locate their item, create personalized wish lists, allowing them to scan the product QR codes. These led the brand to reach heights building more loyal customers and increase the number of orders.
3) Kroger: A famous supermarket chain- Kroger tasted success by implementing features like location-based grocery list and targeting, beacons technology and much more in an app.
Well the above examples proves that implementing the listed features as well as coming up with new innovations in your online grocery store would serve your tech- savvy shoppers thereby increasing your online grocery orders.