selling via Mobile Apps

In many consumers’ minds, mobile shopping is all about the apps. Finding
and downloading the latest popular apps and—better still for merchants
who offer them—sharing the apps with friends makes this e-shopping for
physical and digital goods highly appealing for buyers.
You can market your mobile website via a mobile app that suits any number
of mobile device manufacturers. The biggest market for mobile apps
today is Apple’s iPhone and iPad. Google Android and RIM BlackBerry
phones also offer scalable selling opportunities with apps.
Most apps are available via an app store, such as Apple’s App Store or the
Android Market. Consumers access such digital catalogs directly from a
mobile device. Of course, some providers, like Apple, Google Android and
BlackBerry RIM, allow their customers to locate apps online via a PC and
synchronize the content with a smartphone.
Apps are highly popular with mobile consumers because they are inexpensive
(and often free), easy, quick, and highly varied shopping tools.

Some downloaded apps, however, have a short shelf life of just a month
or so, while others may be quickly mothballed—or worse, never opened—
by A users.

Still, Nielsen Research reports that the average consumer today has 10
to 40 apps installed on his phone. While that total is expanding exponentially,
there’s still design time, consumer interest, and marketing
opportunity to launch your own mobile shopping app. That window
of opportunity, we must remind you, remains open only as long as you
maintain a compelling, updated, and relevant app.