Myntra, the country’s largest fashion e-retailer, discontinued its website and moved to an app-only portal. Flipkart is planning to do the same in upcoming future. The gravitation towards mobile app only shopping is occurring at a time when shopping using Mobile devices is showing tremendous growth in India, especially in categories like Mobile Recharge, Entertainment, Bus Tickets and Food ordering. Most of the major E-Commerce companies are now focusing on their Mobile App. They are hosting Mobile App sale day and even exclusive offers only through App to bring more of their business through the same. Recently, the ‘Great Indian Summer Sale’ by Amazon was one among many such bold actions taken towards the same.
But have these companies failed to see consumer’s expectation? Have they overlooked customer’s viewpoint just to create a wave?
With this backdrop, CouponRani.com conducted a survey during May to check the consumer’s pulse on Mobile App only shopping, and to better understand their views. They sought individual views of few consumers, and few industry executives. But the best feedback will come from online shoppers themselves so it was conducted among all the shoppers that visited CouponRani.com. The findings of the survey are quite perplexing.
Questions asked and key findings of the survey are:
Question 1: Are you comfortable Shopping Only on Mobile App?
51% Consumers are NOT comfortable shopping on Mobile APP only: 51% of the respondents said that they are NOT comfortable shopping only through Mobile APP. 39% of the respondents said they are fine using Mobile APP for shopping. Remaining 10% were undecided on this question.
Question 2: What is your favourite device type for your online shopping?
i.e Desktop remains a favorite device to browse and shop.
Question 3: What is your biggest concern while shopping through Mobile App?
Well! Product Browsing is Still A Concern While Shopping Through Mobile App.
Question 4: Are you comfortable in ordering costly items through Mobile APP?
It showed that 41% Consumers Shop Less than 20% of their Overall Purchases through Mobile App: Though consumers say they are comfortable in ordering high value products through mobile, only less than 20% still shop via Mobile APP.
Question 5: What Percentage of shopping you do through mobile phone?
Question 6: Which is your favourite APP for shopping?
Flipkart And PayTM lead as the favorite Mobile APPs: Though most of the companies are pushing for Mobile APP through various channels, more than 56% of the respondents favor Flipkart and PayTM as the best Mobile APP.
Question 7: While shopping through Mobile phone what is your favourite Mode of payment?
So in our country, COD and Digital wallet are the favorite mode of payment while shopping through Mobile.
Interestingly, Survey Audience consisted of 47% respondents below 25 years. 86% of the respondents were Male. This is similar to the typical demographic of online shoppers in India.
No doubt, the results of the survey contradict observed fact of increased the inclination of e-commerce giant towards mobile only app shopping.
What is more exciting is that most of the traffic generated on mobile apps is from tier II and tier III cities. The consumers at this level find it easier to buy a Smartphone at much cheaper rate than a desktop to access internet. But again what is being neglected is fact that complete absence of desktop accessible websites is too alienating. A risk of completely loosing these consumers is attached to this drift to mobile only shopping platform.
A trade-off is set between the consumers over desktop and shoppers through mobile apps. As the survey suggests, more than half of the online consumer population is not comfortable shopping over only mobile app, hence associating your platform to a mobile app only portal can turn out to be fatal. For the best interest, it is advisable to wait and watch over customer behavior until a subtle prediction can be made before you hurry to join the bandwagon!
