Searching for special offers, reading product quality reviews, comparing prices, etc. are the advantages that many people prefer when making purchases via smartphone apps.
Users when shopping online have a wider selection of goods, often enjoy more incentives, and do not have to travel to the store. Despite such benefits, it was not until the Covid-19 pandemic occurred, that consumer behavior was forced to change, and the demand for online shopping increased.
Tammy Phan, Marketing Director in charge of Vietnam market at Google Asia Pacific, provides data showing that shopping through apps is very popular in Vietnam, accounting for more than half (55%) of the survey participants.
Users like to shop through apps for many reasons, for example, they can search, research product information, and then make a purchase decision. 40% of respondents use the app to look up products in stock, 55% read reviews before buying, 51% compare product prices.
However, the most important reason for many people to use the app is that there are deals available, and they can find these deals more easily when viewing on the app. Up to 77% of app users want to search for discounts to shop more economically.
Not only that, but users also take advantage of the app as a tool to make a shopping list. Specifically, 38% of people save the list of products to shop in the application’s shopping cart. This makes it easy for them to remember the items they want to buy, and when the product is on sale, they just need to press the checkout button.
The Google representative advised retailers to take advantage of the aforementioned habits of users to attract them to use the application. For example, it is necessary to implement incentive programs to entice more users. Users tend to like frequent discounts and will return for these offers.
In addition, because customers tend to search for products on the app, developers should design an intuitive interface, easy to understand, and easy to find products.
Additionally, users love to read product reviews before making a purchase, so retailers should have a policy that encourages users to write reviews. The data shows that 55% of app users regularly read reviews, 28% have the habit of writing reviews or product reviews.
Although they prefer to shop on apps and are ready to use apps, a Google representative believes that apps need to be built that are easy to understand, informative, and bring many benefits to users. Because in fact, a lot of people have installed the app but never used it.
On average, 38% of users have installed an app but never used it. On average, 32% of people install a retailer’s app but never use it.
Reasons why users have installed the app but don’t use it: 21% think the app design is complicated, 19% criticize the registration is difficult, 17% do not even understand what the app provides. Meanwhile, about 15% of people need instruction on how to use it.