M-Commerce Applications: Components, Features and Development

Mobile phones, PDAs and other handhelds have become irreplaceable companions in our everyday life: we can hardly imagine a single day without them and are more likely to forget at home a wallet rather than our mobile phones. Therefore, mobile phones and devices alike are regarded by many merchants as another channel to reach its consumers and facilitate their shopping routine. At the same time, software development companies have identified another area of mobile app development services to direct their efforts towards – m-commerce application development.

M-commerce apps as a part of retailers’ services

M-commerce solutions complement existing e-commerce solutions and traditional shopping in a brick and mortar stores. However, merchants as well as developers strive to make customers’ m-commerce experience as convenient and trouble-free as possible, while providing retailers with an opportunity to leverage this sales channel to its maximum. Hence, mobile app developers are often tasked with the development of a holistic m-commerce app with full-fledged functionality.

Key components of m-commerce applications

• Mobile storefront modules are an integral part of m-commerce apps, where all commodities and services are categorized and compiled in catalogs for customers to easily browse through the items on sale and get essential information about the products.
• Mobile ticketing module is an m-commerce app component that is closely linked to promotional side of commercial business and enables vendors to attract customers by distributing vouchers, coupons and tickets.
• Mobile advertising and marketing module empowers merchants to leverage m-commerce channels in order to manage its direct marketing campaigns, which are reported to be very effective especially when targeted at younger representatives of digital information consumers. 
• Mobile customer support and information module is a point of reference for information about a particular retailer, its offerings and deals. The news about the company, current discounts, shop locations and other information is either pushed to users’ m-commerce apps or can be found in m-commerce app itself.
• Mobile banking is inextricably linked to selling process via m-commerce apps, because no purchase can be finalized without a payment. There are various options for executing mobile payments, among which are direct mobile billing, payments via sms, credit card payments through a familiar mobile web interface, and payments at physical POS terminals with NFC technology.

M-commerce development challenges and constraints to be addressed by mobile developers

M-commerce app development should not be considered as something totally identical to e-commerce app development, because there are certain peculiarities to be addressed by mobile developers, who should:

• Optimize m-commerce app interface to be used on mobile and handheld devices with a special attention to the search functionality of m-commerce apps.
• Develop secure payment systems and payment gateways that will encrypt and protect users’ financial information.
• Leverage mobile device memory capacity efficiently to provide feature-rich m-commerce app without making it bulky and slowing down the productiveness of mobile devices and handhelds.
• Make platform-specific mobile design and ensure that neither of the technologies used for the development of separate components is in conflict with a mobile platform (for instance, Flash technology on iPhones).

There is no denying that m-commerce is one of the areas to be harnessed by vendors in order to extend their market reach, while m-commerce app development is a strategic step for building multi-faceted bricks and clicks environment that has proved to bring its ROI.