4. Dynamic Offers
When you tie in technologies like push notifications and geotargeting, magical things start to happen. Businesses can use data collected through geotracking and ad campaigns to deliver just-in-time offers. Groupon Now is just the tip of the iceberg. The power of mobile apps allows businesses to do all sorts of cool things to boost revenue.
For example, movie theaters and very time-sensitive inventory that goes to waste at a particular time and can’t be recovered. The theater could track and send a coupon to users who are nearby and looked up information about showtimes but didn’t make a purchase. A bar with a slow night could offer an impromptu extended happy hour to past patrons who are nearby.
5. Pushing Through the Funnel
Ever walked into a store, shopped around a bit, and then walked out without making a purchase? That’s called a "bounce." Online, users bounce for a variety of reasons and on mobile the reasons are even greater. Users might not have a credit card handy, typing in account information is considered too tedious or they simply get distracted and put their phone back in their pocket.
Fortunately, one way to combat transaction abandonment is through automatic address fill-in. Using a phone’s GPS, transactional apps can detect a user’s location and automatically fill in address data. Seamless, the leading online food delivery service, has been aggressively marketing its mobile apps that automatically detects a user’s location to fill in a delivery address and display restaurants able to deliver there.
6. Data Gathering
One of the really powerful tools available to online businesses is that they can easily track every move customers make from the moment a user lands on the site. What engaged users and what turned them off? Where, exactly, in the online store did a user go and what did they do when they got there? These are really easy questions for webmasters to answer, but good luck figuring that out in brick-and-mortar store. That is, unless you’re using the Wi-Fi signals emitted from smartphones in your customers pockets and purses. Tracking signals from mobile devices is opening a whole new world of analytics and data-gathering opportunities for retailers stuck in the physical world.
7. Compete Anywhere
Many brick-and-mortar retailers complain about showrooming, the practice whereby shoppers visit a physical store to inspect the goods in person all the while intending to ultimately make their purchase online, where prices are usually cheaper. While the traditional retailer might be on the losing end of that transaction, the customer and online retailer are winning. Price comparison tools are helping etailers drive additional traffic and sales. Amazon, for example, even went so far as to offer a $5 discount to shoppers who scanned items using their price comparison tool.
Mobile apps are helping businesses increase revenue largely by increasing efficiency. Instead of advertising to broad spectrum, users can be narrowly targeted. Businesses can lure back customers who haven’t been in a while but are nearby. Customers can shop during small pockets of time that would have have previously gone to waste. Businesses can precision-discount inventory in the last moments before it would have gone to waste. And all these little efficiencies are resulting in more revenue for businesses while, by and large, enhancing the overall experience for users.
Via Mashable
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