E-Commerce and How Apps Do it Better...

With e-commerce is general, there is no doubt that the shopping cart is a big stumbling block to sales.

Having a drop off rate of 50% or more at this stage is not uncommon.

When it comes to entering all your details, getting out the credit card, and then making the purchase possibly after yet more third party verification like verified by visa, then you can lose a lot of sales, either as people can't find the details they need or as each additional step and details capture puts them off the purchase.

But with Apps of course the process is so much simpler: your card is on file, and all you do is click the 'Buy' button then enter your app store password... and that's all there is to it!

I'm sure if Apps had the orthodox sales process, the app sales would be much, much lower. Yet another example of how Apple seems to do it better!

Re : E-Commerce and How Apps Do it Better

Good point, not thought of that - must be why I seem to spend so much money on apps that I rarely use!

I also think the price point is good, at generally 59pence per app; anything under a pound I feel it doesn't really matter if it's useless so I'm more willing to give it go than, say, if it was a purchase of more than a few pounds where I would want to be sure I really wanted the app or not...

Re : E-Commerce and How Apps Do it Better

Generally a lot can be learnt from everything that apple do.

Creating a need for personal music players, creating a need for people to have essentially sophisticated PC type machines in the palm of their hands.

I think the best - and perhaps unintentional - innovation of Apple was to give so many other parties a vested interest in your technology doing well. And that is of course the Apps.

There are whole agencies that have sprung into existence around apps and related services and of course many companies have made a fortune through selling apps.

And many other companies create an app as a perk and then advertise it, so apple get huge exposure without even paying for the advertising and all those third parties are rooting for them to do well so they in turn do well, like the ultimate in affiliate marketing!