By Kris Day
The e-commerce market in India is booming. As a result, organisations are investing heavily in mobile apps to provide seamless experiences for their users. A recent study by New Relic found that 81% of Indians use their smartphones for online purchases. Furthermore, 5 in 10 Indian consumers almost always, or frequently, use their smartphone in-store for price comparison or to view live product reviews.
Savvy online retailers can provide tailored user experiences via mobile applications and app users tend to become more loyal as a result. However, customers demand good experiences around the clock. Slow loading times, lack of adequate online payment options, and unsolicited notifications can turn a loyal customer into a frustrated one, fast.
Retailers in India must understand these customer pain points and adjust their technology offerings to provide digital experiences that will delight shoppers and keep them coming back.
Pain point no. 1: Slow buffering or loading time
Immediacy is king when it comes to mobile apps for retail. It is also one of the biggest pain points for customers in India with 46% saying they would download a shopping app that offered faster UX. In fact, 60% of customers in India won’t stay on an app for more than 10 seconds if it shows slow buffer speed.
Every customer that experiences slow load time is a missed opportunity for revenue generation. It frustrates customers to have to wait for apps to load or navigate apps that are poorly designed.
This is a clear indicator that eliminating one of the biggest pain points for customers can help meet the brand’s overall loyalty goals.
Pain point 2: The user experience isn’t seamless
User experience is imperative to whether customers decide to retain mobile apps on their phones. Around 90% of users stop using a mobile app because of poor performance. UX is also a clear indicator of customer loyalty with 62% of customers making future purchases based on past experiences, and 44% recommending brands to friends if the experience is great.
High-quality user experience (UX) design is no longer a competitive edge alone. Instead, it’s a crucial element for long-term market success because apps need to be used for brands to generate revenue online. The average retention rate on an Android app on the first day of download in India is 23% and this drastically drops to 1.96% on day 30. It’s clear that businesses that focus on creating the best possible user experience stand to benefit.
Pain point 3: Digital payments are failing
One of the biggest inconsistencies that leave shoppers frustrated is when digital payments don’t go through and it takes a great amount of effort to process refunds. The State of Ecommerce in India report found that among the top concerns regarding digital payments among Indian customers were payment failure (50%) and problems processing refunds (45%).
Another reason shoppers abandon a retailer’s website or mobile app is the lack of adequate digital payment options. Globally, more than half (56%) of customers admit that they would buy more from an online store if there were more payment options available. When it comes to online payments, seamless transactions are the order of the day. Achieving reliability in digital payments offers retailers a competitive edge.
Overcoming challenges with observability
Online retailers need observability solutions to address major pain points and create memorable digital experiences. All-in-one observability solutions see everything across the business as they offer APIs, gateways, and integrations that follow customers across every shopping step. These platforms also use a tracker to model system health which can instantly spot performance issues with required alerts and simulate shopper interactions. Retailers can view all the omnichannel data in one place from online, in-store, and fulfilment, ensuring any issues are fixed proactively.
The negative impacts of performance issues and the lack of speed in e-commerce apps can have real-world consequences on revenue, customer satisfaction, and brand reputation. App optimization and performance tuning are essential for businesses to continually refine their strategies to deliver impeccable user experiences.
The need for speed is unrelenting. Online retailers must understand the relationship between loading time, performance, and user satisfaction. With so much at stake, observability solutions are essential in creating the digital experience customers crave.
The author is Senior Vice President, Asia Pacific and Japan, New Relic