Electronic Commerce, more colloquially known as eCommerce, has been growing more and more over the past years. According to Statista, the worldwide sales made via eCommerce were worth more than 1.2 trillion US dollars in 2013. Since then, eCommerce has only continued to expand. There are three main categories of eCommerce though, B2B (business to business), B2C (business to consumer), and C2C (consumer to consumer). While these three hold the largest share of eCommerce business, there are other, smaller types that can take place.
Whether they use a desktop computer, tablet, or other mobile device, more than one billion people worldwide participates in online shopping. That’s about 40 percent of all Internet users, according to Statista. However, while any device that can access the Internet has been used for shopping, the continuing rise in popularity of smartphones and tablets has made the mobile eCommerce market more and more lucrative. The revenue from mobile commerce in the US alone was 38 billion US dollars in 2013. These trends are bound to only increase as mobile devices reach higher saturation.
Redbox
Many of you might have fond memories of meandering through the isles at a Blockbuster or other rental place trying to decide what movie you wish to rent for the night. But like so many other businesses in different industries, they were pushed out of favor and convenience by the Internet and other, easier rental routes. Oddly enough, one of those “other” routes is Redbox. These little red kiosks have become almost ubiquitous in just about every city there is. Using them is simple enough but they can usually only service one person at a time, so long lines and waits can form as people take their time browsing the selection. However, Redbox has released an app that allows you to browse their selection from your phone. Dream Grow highlights the fact that the app will also direct you to the nearest kiosk that actually has your choice in stock.
For those of you who run eCommerce sites that deal with games and movies, you can use this app to do some research on descriptions, prices, and other important sale information.
Best Buy
When searching for a new computer, or other electronic device, Best Buy is one of the biggest retailers in the industry. However, some might grumble that their prices are a little steep. Regardless of whether you’re looking to buy or hunting for information, the Best Buy app is an excellent piece of software for conducting research on prices, product descriptions, and other comparison points. Small Biz Dad suggests using it to adjust your product prices as a way to draw in customers who conduct a lot of their own research before buying anything.
HotelTonight
If you’re a buddy entrepreneur looking to get into the travel agency business by hooking eager vacationers up with deals on hotel rooms, HotelTonight is a great app to learn from. As an app that hooks its users up with last minute, discounted hotel rooms across the US and Europe, HotelTonight offers a very personalized, good looking experience. It categorizes hotels according to the type of experience a user might expect to have at whatever hotel they’re looking at. For the travel agent entrepreneurs out there, HotelTonight should be the benchmark of excellence you work to improve on, both in presentation, and functionality. And now is a good time to get into the mobile travel agency business as travel bookings created via mobile devices will reach around $25 billion in the US alone according to Envato Market.
Search Engine Marketing Calculator
So far, each app mentioned has been more of a source for research into developing your own app or improving your eCommerce website and product offerings. But what about getting found in Google, one of the premiere resources for finding products online. You can either pay an SEO company a monthly amount to rank highly for a product or product category or you can run a Search Engine Marketing Campaign that runs ads in Google, Bing and other search engines. The Search Engine Marketing Calculator (SEMC) is incredibly helpful when dealing with costs and requirements for your marketing campaigns. According to Practical Ecommerce, the SEMC app provides you with a number of specialized calculators to help figure out the costs for various types of ads and marketing actions. You can even use it to run test scenarios that you can fully customize. As a free app, this one is a must have for any budding eCommerce entrepreneur.
Of course, there are plenty of other apps out there that can be useful in eCommerce. There are productivity apps, blogging apps, social networking apps, other marketing apps, customer tracking and support apps, and so on. What you decide to download and how you use it is up to you. But as the Redbox and Best Buy apps can prove, even a competitor’s app can be useful in providing you with information and research. Most eCommerce vendors, like Shopify, also offer their own apps you can use for research along with their other useful services.
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