Retailers are choosing to abandon their conventional e-commerce websites in favor of apps
Mobile shopping is becoming more common in India, but some consumers are not convinced that retailers should abandon their websites for an app-only approach. This is the case with Myntra and Flipkart, two of the largest e-commerce entities in the country. Both companies are opting to push shopping from a mobile application, choosing to abandon their websites altogether. While shopping on a mobile app may be considered convenient for consumers, removing the options that these consumers have may be a problem.
Apps may be making it less convenient to shop from a mobile device
Young consumers have shown a great deal of enthusiasm when it comes to mobile commerce. These people tend to spend a significant portion of their time on the Internet, using a wide variety of apps to interact with others and for the sake of entertainment. They also make use of mobile apps to do their shopping, but they also visit e-commerce sites directly, either with their desktop computers or mobile devices. As retailers begin abandoning their websites, consumers are finding it harder to shop online.
Mobile shopping apps tend to lack the functionality of e-commerce websites
Mobile shopping apps can be convenient, but they often lack the selection of products that can be found on conventional e-commerce sites. Apps also do not support large pictures, which can make it more difficult for consumers to see the products that they are interested in. There are also functionality issues with applications that can make shopping from a mobile device more complicated than it is meant to be. While websites are not perfect, they may offer consumers more options when it comes to shopping, especially when it comes to product selection.
Mobile shopping is gaining traction throughout India
Despite the problems of mobile apps, mobile commerce continues to thrive in India. More consumers are choosing to shop online with their smartphones and tablets than ever before. This trend is expected to continue gaining momentum over the next several years, making India one of the leasing mobile commerce markets in the world.
This new milestone has suggested that the company’s strategy to cross platforms is a successful one.
According to the latest download figures, Microsoft Office apps have now been downloaded over 100 million times, which has indicated that despite a great deal of controversy surrounding the cross platform strategy that the company has adopted, it is paying off.
The suite of apps has been made available to users of Android, iOS and recently Windows Phone based devices.
The software and technology giant held its third quarter earnings call, last week, and revealed that its Microsoft Office apps have been doing very well on the operating systems of its rivals, Google and Apple. “We are clearly taking Office everywhere” explained the company’s CEO, Satya Nadella, as it described the rapidly growing popularity of the suite of applications.
He went on to state that “Core to our mobile first strategy is to ensure that our service end points are on every mobile device, and to that end we have seen continued momentum with more than 100 million downloads of Office on iPhones, iPads, and Android tablets.”
Nadella pointed out that the cross platform versions of the Microsoft Office apps is only the start.
He also discussed the recent release of Outlook mobile apps on the Android and iOS platforms which occurred in the second quarter of this year. Moreover, Nadella also said that the company is making updates to its OneDrive applications and that said that there would very soon be a preview of an upcoming version of the Office software suite that has been designed for Mac computers. This, he said, means that the Office service is now being made available to users on more devices than ever before.
This represents considerable achievements for Microsoft, since the rise in use of Microsoft Office apps has also meant that there has been a notable increase in the subscriptions to Office 365. According to the figures cited by Nadella, that service is now seeing an average of 1 million new customers every month and that the company now has over 12 million subscribers to that service. That represents a very healthy growth of 35 percent over what it had been in the quarter before.
