While UK high street retailers have been ramping up pre-Christmas sales and promotions since November, Research group Springboard estimates that footfall in-store will fall 4.2% over this crucial December period.
BDO High Street Sales Tracker reports that in-store sales in November were down 2.6% on last year while online sales were soaring 18.2% higher, much to the agony of traditionally brick and mortar chains such as Debenhams and Marks & Spencers.
Out of the online sales in the UK, the mobile commerce market is expected to be worth £243.7 billion by 2022, a further rise of 55% according to Retail Gazette. Mobile is already the main way we browse, game & communicate.
Based on this, mobile commerce will lead the growth with apps as the first touch point for retailers to engage with consumers. Just last week, US marketplace Craigslist that has been considered as the dinosaur of online shopping launched native mobile apps, as browser and desktop usage is giving way to feature-rich and mobile solutions.
‘We specialize in complex web applications and when it comes to mobile solutions, retailers as well as any other organizations selling their products and services online, need to be smarter and faster in getting up to date with custom software applications. Employing the latest technologies to provide effective in-development and maintenance solutions for most popular iOS and Android platforms is key,’ explains Dmitri Adov, Technical Director at Software Country.
‘As an example, we recently built a new online airline-tickets booking engine for a large airline with millions of passengers internationally. As up to 40% of users visited the customer's online booking system using mobile devices, the lack of a responsive layout suited to mobile, and difficulties with implementing desired business logic, presented a need to shift to building a tailored web interface.
‘Their clients using mobile phones can now enjoy a much smoother user experience as a result of an interface more suitable for mobile devices, especially when using mobile networks.’
Software Country, a multi-million pound British Standards Institute (BSI) certified company that works extensively with Fortune 500 companies designing and building custom software, builds enterprise mobile apps integrated with core business software, providing the full range of software development services across sectors from education to pharmaceuticals and from retail to airlines.