Mobile evolution has revamped online businesses. More than 50% of eCommerce conversions are directly coming from mobile devices. The businesses are benefitting a lot through mobiles. And with technological advancements, the means of conducting business are also changing.

Across all the online merchant communities, many have different opinions regarding responsive website V/S the dedicated mobile apps. Many are getting confused about whether to use mobile apps or mobile optimized websites. Hence to solve the confusion, here is a detailed article busting all the myths and delivering the exact information with the detailed pros & cons of both. So without further due, let's get started.

Mobile Apps

The mobile apps are native apps that can be downloaded and installed on your phone. The native mobile apps help you offer a solid experience of shopping to the customers. And overall a better brand image can be established from the apps. They can be created for specific mobile OS such as Android and iOS. The native apps have many extra features too. Below we have mentioned the pros & cons of the native mobile app.

Pros of mobile apps

• All giant businesses are investing a lot in mobile apps. And the users are expecting the same from small scale business owners too.
• The mobile apps create an overall better brand image in front of shoppers and deliver the best experience of interacting with your brand.
• The mobile apps are specially designed to work on specific mobile devices and operating systems resulting in better performance.
• They can deliver a better user experience.
• The apps load faster and deliver ease of use to the end-users.
• The mobile apps can leverage the core mobile features such as GPS, cameras, phone dialing, etc.
• The native apps provide more functionalities to the users. The users can customize apps according to their likings and usage.
• The native mobile apps also come with offline capabilities. A few of its features can be operational without the internet too.
• Mobile apps provide better marketing capabilities too. The features like unlimited push notification and personalized experience can deliver the best results in improving sales & conversion.

Cons of mobile apps

• The businesses need to generate enough app downloads to get conversion through the mobile app.
• The users have to download the app and go through the app download & update cycles to enjoy all the latest features.
• The app layout must be attractive & smooth. Or the users will instantly uninstall the app or stop using it.

Responsive mobile websites

The responsive mobile websites are just simple ordinary websites optimized to deliver the best experience on all devices. They function the same on mobiles, computers, and tablets. The website design layouts, animations, etc are optimized to work flawlessly on all the devices. Users can access the website through the web browser.

The pros of responsive website design

• There is no need to create dedicated websites for mobile as well as desktop. One well designed responsive website will work perfectly fine for all the devices.
• The websites can be accessed easily through web browsers. There are no downloads and updates cycles involved.
• The websites are very light on the phone and do not require storing any data in the phone memory.
• Depending on the complexity of the website, responsive websites are cost-effective. and requires very little or no maintenance.

The cons of responsive website design

• The responsive website design offers relatively fewer features compared to a native mobile app.
• The features such as push notifications and the personalized experience become limited with responsive websites.
• The experience of interacting with your business will be better on the mobile device.
• The speed of the native mobile app will be faster than responsive websites.
• The offline capability of the native mobile app will be better compared to responsive websites.
• The trends in the industry are changing. Mobile apps are becoming the norm. The users are expecting businesses to have a native mobile app. Hence having an app will be a better choice.

The bottom line

Now, as you have gone through the cons & pros of mobile app and responsive websites, you have a better idea of their capabilities & weaknesses. There is a myth around the business world that mobile app development requires a huge investment. Well, that's not completely true. With tools like MobiApp, the perfect eCommerce mobile app for Shopify can be easily created.

The MobiApp is a drag & drop mobile app creation tool. With minimal effort and within a limited time, a perfect mobile eCommerce app can be created. And in just 2 to 5 business days, your app will be ready to go live for Android & iOS bot. For more info regarding the app, feel free to visit our website and you can also contact us by email at [email protected].

I hope all your doubts about Mobile App V/S Responsive Mobile Website are cleared now. And thanks for reading the article until the end. And I hope to see you around for our next publications too.