How Beacons Will Keep Retail Mobile App Development Alive

One question always rings while mobile application development that can beacon bring new fortuity for retail? Studies indicate we may see beacons in retail driving more data soon, according to Gartner “the market for data is growing and its usages range from retail optimization tool to currency”.

On the basis of a study “Global beacons market is expected to grow $14.839 million by 2024, growing at a CAGR of 61.50%”.

But the sad news is that retailers around the world are still not skillful to work with data. Of course, data analytics is not new but it has been changing as new trends are coming at bullet speed. But IoT has played an important role in data generation, especially in retail to win something big.

Over the past couple of years, Beacons have faced a netted reaction as retailers have struggled to combine it with mobile app downloads. Beacons proof best for mobile app development services associated with the retailer if it hooks the shopper to make them a resurgence. If it can integrate into a wide variety of mobile apps, then it becomes easier for retailers to allow the beacons to reach out to shoppers.

One of the UK retailer House of Fraser stated that it will introduce “beacon-equipped mannequins in its Aberdeen store to provide customers with a more engaging retail experience”.

This beacon will send a signal when a customer with an enabled smartphone app is within 50 meters of the mannequin.

Key Findings – 

·         Most of the people are having location service enabled devices in their pockets. According to a prediction, this number will hit 2.5 billion users worldwide in 2019.

·         Number of people who have access to data via their mobile device as global 4G LTE and Wi-Fi coverage increases year-over-year

·         Today location service technology is becoming a common functionality of smartphones. A leading mobile app development companies in USA and internet search has already publicized it boon as it allows marketers to send out offers to consumers based on their location.

Beacons Working – Retail App Development Services

Beacons are an outlandish powerful tool for reaching the modern retailer’s mobiles because they allow marketers to send messages while they were roaming around their stores. It also enables marketers to track the live movements of their customers by using Bluetooth technology.

These small computers, use proximity technology to detect human presence who are nearby and trigger predefined actions to deliver push notifications. When a customer enters in an area of an indoor positioning system, a beacon sends a code in a mobile application with a message to their mobile device. Here mobile application development solutions come forth: this coded message, which is shown in a form of a notification, can only be viewed with a mobile app.

Today the number of retailers which use beacons are limited, same with the consumers as only 6% of consumers have used in-store beacons. According to Walker Sands, “More than 60% of shoppers say they are not currently receptive to push notifications from retailers or in-store mobile tracking”.

In the beacon’s fast-growing industry there are various Beacon embedded mobile apps are available such as an iBeacon app, an Eddystone app, or an indoor navigation app.  Apple is the first smartphone which has introduced beacons with iOS 7.

Summing up

Though the introduction of beacon technology poses various challenges, but if retailers offer beneficial and relevant offers to customers, they can enhance engagement and can get far greater insight.

As we know that mobile devices are playing important role in the shopping experience, therefore, the beacon technology is likely to go mainstream in the next few years.

Want to integrate beacons in your new project? Hire our mobile app developers today. Connect with us  at +1 (512) 333-1321.

Why You Need to Create User Personas for Your Mobile App

Today it is very important for businesses to create a user persona as it helps to know the exact needs of customers and modify the business module accordingly. But maintaining it is not an easy task as it requires market knowledge, research and active user’s insight that helps businesses to reach a different peak.

In the current scenario, with the help of latest technologies, devices and mobile applications, the tuning between machine and humans has evolved, though it was started evolving since the first-time man put a wheel on an axle, but now it has improved into large extent only because of user persona. Let’s discuss, what exactly it is?

What Is User Persona?

A user persona is a fictive representation of ideal customers, it generally based on the behavior patterns of the target audience, goals, user’s needs, and current market trends. It contains four basic information related to users:

§  Header

§  Demographic Profile

§  End Goal(s)

§  Scenario

Why Do You Need A Persona?

If you are a mobile app developer or an IT solution provider company, then it’s very important for you to understand who your audience is and who will be using the product. Because knowing the audience will help you to make a decision that is appropriate to you and your business. User’s persona clarifies the behaviour of the target audience by answering the following questions:

§  Who is the ideal customer?

§  What are the current behaviour patterns of users?

§  What are the requirements and goals of users?

For any successful project, it is very important for developers to understand the needs of users as their spelled-out persona will help you to effectively identify the user needs and which techniques are essential to the overall value proposition.

Let’s discuss the benefits of creating a user persona before developing an app:

Benefits of creating a user persona

Following are the useful benefits of creating a user persona:

1. Provide a better understanding of the customers’ need

Defining and satisfying the needs of the target audience are the key goals for creating user persona. If you have a clear understanding of your audience needs, you can address them with an intelligent UX/UI for your mobile app or website.

While designing your mobile application, always keep in mind that your design must be appealing enough to attract the attention of users as it gives your audience in-depth, unbiased reviews to convert fans out of potential customers.

2. Know your customer's online activity

Collect the data of your potential audience, it will help you to get the better understanding of how and where your customer spends their online time. This data allows you to create your ads and content more adroitly since now you know where you will find the most potential audience.

For example, these collected data could recommend you the strenuously spend the majority of their time online on newer social platforms such as Snapchat and Instagram instead of Facebook. This new information is useful for tailoring a more effective content and advertising strategy for your mobile application.

3. Develop steady brand language

When you create user persona and share it with each team members then all members become aware of how to handle the audience from different persona groups. This method allows you to create a steady brand language so that the sales team gets a better understanding of hot leads. Thus, creating a user persona can help you to increase your conversion rate.

4. Create a higher customer lifetime value

It also avows you to gauge the group of audience that is more likely to be valuable to your company. It shortens the sales cycle and makes marketing more efficient. With the clear understanding of target group, your sales and marketing teams unfailingly spend more time on the right channel for getting better sales for your business.

Summing up

The user persona is the go-to method for promptly identifying user needs. With the help of real data of archetypical users, mobile app development team can design an app that confidently meets the needs of the broader consumer base.

Overall, it helps in throughout the entire product development phase and combines additional user experience design methods for launching a useful and usable solution. Feel free to contact us!

It’s Time To Switch To Kotlin For Mobile App Development

In the mobile app development industry, Kotlin has been in the buzz as it becomes a developer first choice for building an Android app. Previously the trend was different when we talk about Android app development, the first programming language that came to our mind was ‘Java’.

Undeniably, the majority of Android apps are written in Java but developers should know that the Android app can be written in various language that can be compiled and run on Java Virtual Machine (JVM).

Kotlin is one of the popular supplement of Java which was developed by JetBrains as a third party language on February 15, 2016. After a year, in May 2017 Google announced their first class support for Kotlin on Android programming to make coding a satisfying and efficient experience.

According to the Realm Report, after Google’s I/O announcement, “the number of applications built with Kotlin has increased by 125% and its adoption rate has doubled from 7.4% to 14.7%”. These figures prove that Kotlin is receiving amazing acceptance from the developers of mobile applications.

Benefits of Kotlin In Mobile App Development

Here’s a couple of reasons why you should totally switch to Kotlin:

Java Interoperability

Kotlin is purely interoperable with Java. Developers can continue to work on their old Java projects using Kotlin. No need to change the code as Java frameworks are still available in Kotlin and all the framework mobile app developers will write in Kotlin is easily adopted by Java developers.

Less code

During the development cycle, times matter a lot. With Kotlin, developers can save time during the mobile app development process as it requires less code means fewer bugs to deal with. Kotlin also helps in accomplishing tasks with high speed, in turn, that can also save your significant amount of time while building a mobile application.

Kotlin has a positive impact on your bottom line also as most of the IT solution provider companies calculate costs based on project hours. So it’s perfectly natural to see Android developers get quite excited over this remarkable programming language.

Android studio support

Android Studio has an amazing support for Kotlin, it makes easier to configure Kotlin in projects just like opening a few menus. Once you have set up Kotlin for Android Studio, your Integrated Development Environment will seamlessly understand, compile and run Kotlin. Developers can also convert the entire Java source file into Kotlin file.

Summing Up

There are lots of features that are offered by Kotlin so it safe to proclaim that Kotlin will go through an accelerated period of evolution over the coming years.

If you have an idea for a mobile app and required dedicated app development team for Kotlin mobile app development, we can offer you the services of our experts. Reach us today and grow IT together!