Company News • 15.04.2015
Making shopping apps an easy option for small retailers
Retailers can now trial SimiCart by building their shopping app with up to 10 real products
Last week SimiCart launched the free edition of its mobile app solution, allowing Magento web store owners to build a shopping app using any 10 of their own products.
SimiCart is an automatic mobile app solution, helping ordinary retailers build mobile shopping apps for iPhone, iPad and Android with no coding knowledge required. It seamlessly connects the app with their existing Magento website, ensuring simple management and configuration later on.
“The free edition gives merchants a risk-free way to trial SimiCart, showing them the simple building process and letting them play with their own mobile app in real time. It shows them what’s possible on a small scale, before they commit to full launch” said Jenny Ta, marketing manager at SimiCart.
With global smartphone and tablet usage rising daily, retailers can no longer ignore the need to engage mobile users. Mobile contributes anywhere from 20%-40% of retail website traffic, depending on the industry, and retailers are left searching for ways to meet these shoppers’ increasing mobile expectations.
“On going mobile, some merchants choose to get a responsive theme or mobile site, but these tempting quick-fix solutions are not enough on their own” Ta explained. “80% of the time spent on our phones is in apps, not in mobile browsers. This suggests that investment in apps will yield far greater web traffic than investment in a responsive theme or mobile site.”
In fact, 85% of customers say they prefer using apps over mobile sites (Compuware, 2013), due to the fact that native apps engage customers in a way they just can’t get from a mobile-optimised site.
“We already had a mobile site” said Muhammad Shawaiz, e-commerce manager at Janan, a leading UK fashion retailer. “…But I was afraid that it was too complex for customers to make a real purchase on mobile. So I purchased a mobile app. The result? Our overall sales have increased 25% in the year since building our app with SimiCart, and I’d like to thank their support team for being so helpful throughout the development process. Now, whenever I think mobile apps, I think SimiCart!”
The free edition is available for anyone who signs up for an account at www.simicart.com.
Source: Magestore
channels: mobile payment, mobile shopping, smartphone
