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Why Is A Retail App Important For Business?

For some years, it has been obvious that everything is becoming mobile. And this is truer for merchants than for anybody else.

But before we go any further, let’s take a deeper look at the mobile market to see what’s happening on and what chances it provides for retail businesses.

According to a recent Flurry study, American consumers spend an average of 3 hours and 40 minutes every day on their mobile devices. Moving on, we’ll observe that 90 percent of mobile time is spent on applications.

What does this signify for the retail industry?

The mobile revolution has altered merchants’ ability to communicate with their consumers. It is no longer necessary to rely on billboards or printed materials to market discounts and special deals when an app can do it more efficiently. Furthermore, the rise of mobile has influenced and altered customers’ purchasing behavior. They use their cellphones to compare costs, look for locations, products, and read reviews from other consumers. Today, mobile commerce is outgrowing all other types of e-commerce like weed.

 

How can retail firms benefit from mobile apps?

There are two methods for implementing various in-app functionality. You can use third-party solutions or engage in bespoke development. Custom development gives your project a lot of flexibility, but it’s also expensive and time-consuming.

Using a third-party solution, you’ll be able to test various hypotheses, see how the solutions perform in practice and determine if you require a feature or whether it’s irrelevant to your organization. You won’t need to spend a lot of money or time doing this. Let’s look at the benefits and drawbacks of each strategy in a specific scenario.

Technologies for geolocation

Geolocation is an efficient approach for navigating your new and present clients, particularly if you operate a brick-and-mortar business.

Geolocation is used by global retail companies such as Walmart, Tesco, and Target to assist consumers to discover the nearest shop in their region and viewing its opening hours and facilities.

 

So, how do we incorporate this technology into a mobile app?

Both the iOS and Android mobile platforms have a variety of APIs for implementing various functions.

Two essential elements correspond to a different API for integrating geolocation in mobile applications:

• determining a position of the object
• displaying the identified object on a map

Android Location services provide extensive opportunities for developers.

We use Maps services to show specific data on the maps provided by Google. The app provides a request for which data should be presented, and the Maps services implement it using their own ways. As a consequence, your application is not engaged in the process of creating maps, drawing objects, plumbing a route, or identifying geolocations. It does it by utilizing a third-party service.

 

The iOS Location service handles geolocation integration on the iOS platform.

The developers use iOS Maps services to implement a range of functions, including:

• standard, street, 3D views
• programmatically pan
• zoom in /out feature
• pitch the map option