The mobile & the message

Can brands and businesses succeed with an app-only strategy in the huge and diverse Indian market?

The Indian market is a challenging battleground for all e-commerce businesses out there. The exponential boom of mobile internet teamed with smartphone usage is offering a major opportunity to e-commerce companies across all segments to reach out to a wider audience.

Online sector like education, transportation, health-care, home services, payments, travel, banking and food are trying their best to attract users towards their apps by offering discounts, adding credits or giving away free gifts or services against app installs and first purchases made on apps.

Many e-commerce companies like Myntra, Grofers, Ola, TinyOwl and Faasos have chosen the app-only path. Using the app-only route has a significant list of advantages attached for both the company as well as the user. App usage offers a personalised approach, better customer experience, easy accessibility and accurate user data, it has a better reach because the number the smart devices clearly exceeds the reach of personal computers.

App approach gives easy access to user location and can help ascertain the estimated delivery time of the order at the exact location, which won't be possible when an order is placed using the website or phone.

Even after all the advantages of an app-only strategy the question remains, Can an app-only strategy succeed in the huge and diverse Indian market? What should be kept in mind when opting for an app-only route for your business?

Mobile devices, internet service and apps have become an integral part of lifestyle these days. Checking for things on phone or "googling" has become a basic behavioural trait of our lifestyle.

It is imperative for the apps to be socially compatible with the user's lifestyle. Brands that sell will have to connect and interact with users in real time and track consumer behaviour to provide them a personalised touch.

Using an app on a mobile device ensures that the user has a distraction free experience. Users are confined to that particular app, the probability and chances of striking a sale is considerably higher because the option of comparing products or services is limited. This makes the app-only approach beneficial for the companies opting for it.

App-only approach is the best way to track individual user behaviour and capitalise on it. A user who usually searches for books on a particular app would be interested in knowing about new books or any discounts offered on buying books. By tracking user history and analytics, relevant personalised notifications can be sent to the user.Such personalised marketing enhances the chances of throttling the sales volume.

Phone memory is also a point of concern when choosing an app-only approach. Smart phone in the economy range have basic features and a scarce memory. Other than the usual pre-loaded apps a basic phone does not have room for too many apps. Users frequently uninstall apps that they do not use regularly. Apps that successfully engage users are the ones that are retained. When the user engagement tricks do not work there is a risk of losing the app users. Tracing and successfully retaining these users is a tough task. With a website in place you might be able to retain those users on your website, but an app-only path does not offer that choice.

The cost of running a website is not hefty enough to be a reason to choose the app-only path. Another school of thought believes that the app-only approach works when the user exactly knows what he wants to buy for e.g. ordering food, groceries or calling a taxi. When the user is looking for an appropriate product that suits his requirement like appliances, electronic items, clothing, accessories etc. he would like to browse different products across websites and buy as per his preferences. In this scenario the app-only approach might not turn out to be effective enough.

If you are planning to choose the app-only approach, you must first weigh the pro and cons carefully and make the transition, from website to app gradual. How you accomplish this successfully would be a challenging task, keep a roll back strategy handy.

Anand Jain, Co-founder, CleverTap