For a time,
the retail industry was gung-ho for mobile apps. Every merchant had to develop an
app for shoppers to download so that the store and customer could remain in constant
touch.
Some
retailers may be cooling on that idea, which is possibly good news for campus
stores that didn’t have the budget to build a custom app anyway. According to Mobile Commerce Daily, many attendees at
the eTail East 2014 conference in early August thought developing mobile
websites made more sense.
While apps
are able to provide greater functionality and are easier for customers to use once
downloaded, they typically cost more to create, partly because each platform
(iOS, iPhone, Android, Windows) calls for its own app. Retailers also have to
constantly market the availability of the app and worry whether customers are
using it successfully.
“Research
has shown that approximately 70% of users lose faith in a brand if an app
frustrates them, and one in five apps is only ever used one time,” Joel Evans,
vice president of mobile enablement at Mobiquity, told Mobile Commerce Daily.
On the
other hand, responsive design allows mobile websites to shapeshift to
accommodate most devices. The investment to develop such sites is much lower,
and a big bonus is that mobile sites will pop up in search results. Some
retailers are opting to put their money into responsive design, at least until
it’s easier and cheaper to create apps.
