DEV Community: Dinesh Dhiman

iOS Technology- Important Features to Include in M-Commerce App Development

Dinesh Dhiman — Mon, 03 Jun 2019 13:31:39 +0000

In the present time, mobile and eCommerce have become two interwoven terms. This way M-commerce is rapidly gathering pace while leaving the merchants with no choice but to build a mobile application.

These mobile applications are constantly evolving due to a splurge in technological advances being made. Talking about iOS technology, it is offering a secure mobile platform with a robust shield against malware or other security threats.

1. Integrating Retail

For setting up a commerce application, you need to make sure that it clearly complements your storefront. Most of the customers are using mobile devices to

find out your store location,
check prices or comparisons,
research your products and services, etc.

So, try to optimize your iOS application from these aspects. It happens many times people prefer to touch and try the products in your physical retail locations after checking it in-app. To serve this need, you can offer them with ‘wishlist’ or ‘save for later purchase’ buttons.

Integration of application with the retail locations also helps more people to download your m-commerce app. Adding to this, you can also allow them with product navigation within the store with the help of the app.

For a detailed overview of APIs included, you can ask iPhone app development company as it holds hands-on experience with Apple SDK and other software.

2. Customer Support

Entertaining customers’ queries or concerns have always remained #1 priority for retailers. It is very important for you to help end users while making their decision to purchase from you.

No matter how expensive and well-optimized iOS application you develop, people will still have queries. Just like in websites, you need to handle this area in mobile applications as well. Make your customer service team readily available for mobile users.

Don’t push mobile users away by making them search your contact or customer care on search engines. Instead, provide them with some tappable button that easily connects to your professionals. This way you can easily convert the mobile users while increasing your business conversion.

3. Streamlined and Secure Checkout

No user today likes to fill out lengthy registration forms and swiping multiple screens before they place an order. Therefore, you need to streamline the checkout process of your mobile application.

Just like with your eCommerce website, you need to avoid some common mistakes while optimizing the customer journey.

Provide mobile users with responsive and easy to find search bars. This way you can cut down on users’ hassles of navigating through different tabs or menus. You can also allow them to create personal accounts where you can save important information like address or card no. etc. to make the transactions easy and time-saving.

When it comes to saving users’ information you need to be careful about the security. Protect your application from account hacks or credit card breaches by taking the appropriate security measures.

4. Multiple Payment Choices

Gone are the days when there was only two medium for payment transactions. Cash or Debit/Credit card. Technological advancements have come a long way and so do the customers.

In the current time, we are transacting via alternative payment choices. For instance, UPI or PayTm or mobile wallets or Amazon Pay or Google Pay or any other. These are often heard terms in the digital industry.

To leave no stone unturned, you should practice alternate payment choices in your M-commerce apps. Consumers would love it and prefer to purchase from you due to the flexibility of payment on their devices.

5. Push Notifications

To spread seasonal or occasional promotions on your brand, you should utilize the push notification feature of mobile devices. It is a perfect medium to tell your app users about deals and offers.

Push notifications hold a greater scope of reaching the audience as compared to others like emails or phone call etc. Though it is a helpful method, it can harm you if practiced more. People can easily get frustrated if forwarded multiple push notification on screens.

They can also unsubscribe your brand or even uninstall your application if you flood their notification list. Try to send personalized notifications based on consumers’ preferences or location or past purchases.

To Wrap it Up….

While addressing the mobile audience, you can not simply develop an application and forget it. You need to be really attentive to every small detail while gaining appreciation.

The above-mentioned tips are quite beneficial when practiced appropriately. So, try to review it carefully before figuring out the best one suited to your business needs.

In case of any queries, contact me anytime.

Retail App Development- Major Considerations for Profitable iOS Applications

Dinesh Dhiman — Wed, 24 Apr 2019 05:16:17 +0000

With the rise of smartphone usage, mobile technology is profoundly transforming many industries. And, it is impacting the retail industry the most while opening many new doors to explore the growth opportunities.

More than ever before, consumers are using mobile devices to research, compare, and even purchase products or avail other services. Whether they are sitting in office or home or any corner of the world, people can access your brand in their palms, all thanks to 4G networks for the added contribution.

Such kind of dramatic growth indicates that today’s retailers need to be well aware of the forces behind this constant splurge in the mobile market. By doing so, they can take advantage of the opportunities to come in the future.

Now when we talk about mobile technology in retail, it’s understood that this term refers to sales enhancements. The sales generated from a mobile platform is still lagging behind desktop and tablets (as per various statistics available on ‘Google’). Still, there lies a scope of systematic and enhanced approach in every retail app design and development.

The core challenge that retailers are facing while developing retail apps is a lack of understanding what mobile technologies are capable of doing for their end users; how to effectively utilize mobile prowess to boost business’ growth; how to capture and utilize the best mobile app design and development practices; and many more.

In this article, I shall cover some major areas to consider before you hire ios developer for starting the design and development work. This piece of writing is a complete work of personal research. Also, it doesn’t include any promotional work in regards to tools or other services.

Let’s get started below!

Keep an eye on Up-to-date UX Practices

A solid and impelling UX or User-experience is a must on every web as well as a mobile application. In general, it is a process to create a seamless and meaningful customer journey on your application. As the name suggests, it is extremely customer-centric (the way people want it to be).

The overall UX involves a careful process of presenting and integrating your services (branding, usability, designing, and functioning) in front of your target audience. All these elements collectively impact the end users’ interaction with your mobile app.

It is also noteworthy that a UX trend that is highly recommended at a specific time period will remain the same after a certain time slot. For instance, if we talk about Typography, it gained a huge appreciation lately and kept on growing in itself.

So, all you need to do is keep an eye on the ever-evolving UX trends in the market. To ensure success, you should remain in touch with any famous technical blog or a team of designers, who can keep you updated about the same.

‘First Impression’ is ‘The last Impression’

The first impression of your iOS applies in its sign-up page. A sign-up page is the first user interaction in context with registration and gaining the access of Application’s features.

For any kind of mobile application, sign-up can dramatically influence customer retention. Either it can easily convert the audience into long-term users or push them away forever. It indicates that a little friction or pushback on this screen can cost you a lot and conveniently increase the abandonment rates.

To turn this opportunity into one that is convenient and seamless in an iOS app, you need to think of different ways that can help you to reduce the customer satisfaction gaps with you. Some of the common hindrances that any user will most probably hate include-

CAPTCHA, A single method of login, Asking personal and sensitive information from users, and so forth.

You can simply allow the registration via Email, Social Media, or even Mobile Number (OTP requests, etc.). Signup with a mobile number is one of the most convenient methods to use for any mobile app. Its successful example is Swiggy. It is a food ordering app that allows users to simply enter their mobile digits and get along with the App.

Refrain In-app Permissions

Being a digital vendor, it is important to ask certain permissions from users due to tightening rules of GDPR and other guidelines. However, it should not be a scenario that your in-app permissions are scaring the consumers and turning out to be negative for UX.

The key to getting your consumers over the discernment of in-app permissions is to avoid unnecessary ones; explaining the reason behind them; provide an option to skip it.

In taxi booking mobile apps, some users initially refrain the location sharing. However, when they will need a cab it will be vital to share their current location with the app.

In this manner, you didn’t even force them to share their location and easily conveyed its importance to them as well at the time of booking.
Likewise, you can think of different connections and methods of various in-app permissions required for your retail mobile app.

SUMMARY

In addition to these above-mentioned iOS app development practices, there are many other key areas like security; seamless navigation; compelling content strategy; optimized CTAs; cutting down on irrelevant elements; and others.

Therefore, it is always recommended to outsource the work of mobile app development to offshore experts or agencies. It shall not only help you to cut down on your valuable time but also allow you to get efficient and profitable apps and that too at reasonable prices.

At last, I hope that you find this article relevant in context with your digital retail endeavors while utilizing the cutting edge mobile technology.

Basic Fundamentals to Know Before Start Developing an iOS App

Dinesh Dhiman — Fri, 19 Apr 2019 09:39:09 +0000

With billions of mobile applications available in today market, it is very difficult to stand alone from the crowd. Mobile apps have become an important integral part of our daily life. Catering to the increasing demand and matching quality expectation has become a mounting challenge for developers. In the case of iOS app development, it is especially true since Apple has established a distinct landscape from its competitors.

As per the Statista reports, Apple is not far away from its rival competitor the Google Play Store. As of 3rd quarter 2018, Apple store has around 2 million apps available to download. Above numbers clearly, indicate the growing number of iPhone users thereby resulting in turning the market more and more competing. So, it is crucial to know the principles of iOS Development before starting iOS app development.

Define the Goal

The first essential step in the development of an iOS application is to define the goal of the app. It should present a clear vision as actionable points, setting the course for application development as per users expectations. Developing an app with no clear purpose or goal is probably going to be a waste of money. So, it's essential that you should define the app goal in two sentences or even less.

Understand and Know Your Target Market/Audience

Knowing your target audience is vital for the launch of any service or product. With the premium nature of iOS apps, this step is indeed more crucial in the case of iPhone app development services. Today’s customers look forth to making their life easier with intelligent solutions. As an app developer, we have to think deep and interpret how the app can make a difference to them. Right from the core functionality to UI design, every feature of the app needs to be in sync with the demand of the people who are likely to use the app.

Once you have recognized your target audience, try to build a wider understanding of their choice. You can study app market data to understand the trends. Studying your competitor’s applications is also a good way to interpret how you can append value and make your app distinct in the iOS market.

Estimate Cost and ROI

If you are planning to derive maximum benefits out of your iOS app, make sure your development efforts are worth it. Before diving into the development process, run an evaluation process of cost and possible return. According to the survey conducted by the Red Hat, 74% of the companies that use KPIs (key performance indicator) to determine their mobile app success have reported a good ROI (return on investment ). ROI analysis and Cost is critical irrespective of whether your app will be the primary source of income or an extra one.

Apple’s Policies Need to Followed Carefully

Apple offers a unique user experience, plus has its own valid conventions for iOS mobile app development. An experienced ios app developer would surely know that UI and app performance holds equal weight. Hence, it is essential to ensure that every member of the development team is knowledgeable of Apple’s guidelines & policies and should follow them consistently.

iOS Compatibility

We all know that in the present market everyone has multiple mobile devices, such as a smartphone and a tablet. And it is quite obvious that you would want your app to have the maximum reach. So, it is recommended to build standard apps that can adapt to the screen sizes of various devices.

Proper Utilization of Frameworks and Libraries

One of the main reason behind the tremendous popularity of iOS mobile app development is its huge number of frameworks and libraries. Whether you're looking to implement custom-UI animations or working with the device hardware, these frameworks and libraries are used to solve a number of issues. As a result, it helps in saving a lot of effort and time and from the developer point of view, there is no need to build the same features all over again.

Double Layer Testing

It is advisable to carry out a double layer testing process. Test the app with respect to its functionality and also at the same time seek users feedback as well. Continue with the testing process, again and again, until you're are not sure your app is complying as per the policies of Apple App Store. The developer runs integration testing, writes unit tests, and identifies glitches and fixes them before the application eventually rolls out to the App store.

Select a Relevant Distribution Model

Pay attention to choosing the best distribution model. Apple offers three distribution models. The most common one is directly uploading to the Apple App Store.

Apple also allows a test service called the TestFlight, which you can practice for the beta launch of your app. TestFlight enables you to invite up to 100 users to test your product privately.

Outfitted with these tips, you can go out and get started with turning your plan into a great application. If you’ve recently developed your application, do let me know how your experience was. I would love to hear from you!