With the growth of mobile devices and the massive success of e-commerce, we've entered what has been dubbed the "post-PC" world. Half of all internet traffic now comes from mobile devices, and mobile devices account for 72% of all e-commerce sales, up from 54% in 2016. 79% of smartphone owners have made a purchase from their phone.

In the view of most investors and marketers, the mobile world is now king. Whereas at one time it was sufficient to have a website and treat a mobile app as an afterthought, today it’s important to recognize that mobile devices are your primary way of reaching customers, and in many cases the only way they’ll reach out to you.

You may be asking why having a mobile-friendly website isn’t enough?  What are the advantages of having a customized B2C App and why should you invest in one? 

Virtual Inventory Takes Center Stage

As a business owner, you know that having enough inventory is the key to running a profitable business. It's also the biggest pain point for most business owners. Shipping, receiving, storage...it's a nightmare to think about.  At the same time, today’s shoppers have short attention spans and a need for instant gratification. When the expectation is instantaneous access to supply, stores need to take measures to keep up.

While you can’t have every diamond and piece of jewelry on display at all times, you can provide robust, digital inventory for clients to search through and interact with, and on their own time and on their own device! To make buying decisions faster and easier, inventory should be at the fingertips of potential customers to scroll through until they find the perfect option.  And because the inventory is virtual, you can stock your “digital storefront” with items from various suppliers all over the world. If a user finds an item they are interested in, they can either request it or “buy” it and schedule an appointment to view in your store. 

Images And Interactive Videos Are Keys to Success

As an experienced jeweler, you’re likely able to skim a diamond grading report or read a description of jewelry, and quickly conjure an image of the piece in your mind. Customers, however, don’t have the years of experience and knowledge to do the same. They can’t truly envision the piece until they actually see it. That’s why providing images and interactive videos of jewelry is essential in today’s market.

Because consumers need to see a piece to truly appreciate it, providing countless pictures of an item or a 360-degree video helps buyers feel sure that they’re getting what they’re paying for.  To help your customers envision their end product when buying diamonds online, make sure to provide a few different interactive features, including:

• High-definition images of the diamonds or jewels, allowing the client to zoom in on small inclusions and details.
• 360-degree interactive video in which users control the movement of the diamonds, showing all angles.
• Pictures of the diamond being held so the client can imagine it in a ring.

By providing high-quality imaging with numerous angles and views, your customer feels like the diamond they’re buying is actually in the palm of their hand.  And by incorporating all of this into an app, they can interact with the images and videos, getting a more realistic feel for these items before purchasing. 

Apps Take Advantage of Native Mobile Features

Depending on the app, a customized B2C app can take advantage of many native features of mobile phones to provide a comprehensive user experience for today’s buyers. Features can range from in-app notifications that alert your clients of sales, to using the phone’s camera to facilitate an augmented reality experience where customers can “try on” pieces, to share functionalities that lets potential buyers share their favorites with their friends and family or to post on social media with a few quick taps. 

While there may be workarounds that can still deliver on these great benefits, an app allows you to streamline the experience and best of all, provide an easy-to-use interface that buyers today are expecting.  Mobile-friendly websites can oftentimes utilize specific tools to provide the same experience.  But accessing them from your site often takes the user out of the browser and into another window, increasing the odds of them losing interest. Mobile is king for the convenience factor and for how easily accessible it makes everything. 

Reinforcing and Promoting Your Brand 

It used to be that having an elegant showroom meant that you had made it as a brand and as a company.  If you had the funds to remodel your storefront to the latest trends and design, you were telling the world how important you are.  Nowadays you need to have a website to legitimize your brand. If you’re not online, you don’t exist.  And what’s better than a website? Your very own app. Nothing says that you are an important brand to be recognized than having your name in the app store. 

Your app can be like a digital storefront, with the same design principles you put into designing your physical space, creating a consistent brand identity across all channels. What’s more, Your app can serve as a digital catalog that exists in virtual space.  And because it's virtual, you can create marketing campaigns to promote it that does not involve a large postage budget or hiring manpower to stick labels on envelopes.  

What’s more, marketing through your app is not dependent on the whims of social media companies. If your business model is dependent on social media, you can lose everything if you lose access to those social media platforms. But with your own app, you have full control over your data and your customers’ data, and you will be able to maintain a relationship with them even as social media platforms come and go.

Having your digital catalog on mobile devices also means it can be carried everywhere.  Say a client is wearing their brand new earrings they got from your store at a party with friends.  Instead of telling them where they got them from, they can easily show them instead. And if your store incorporates a referral incentive program, you can easily get your brand trending in no time. 

Create A Unique In-Store Experience

While a B2C custom app can be beneficial on smartphones, an app does not have to be limited for use outside your store.  We know that after COVID, the way consumers shop and make purchases has changed.  This means that our in-store experiences should also change to adapt to these differences in behavior. 

One way the pandemic has changed consumer preferences is the rise of Buy Online, Pickup In-Store (BOPIS) options. A custom app would allow you to streamline the BOPIS process. When clients make a purchase online, the app will notify them that their order has been received and send them order status updates up until the time their order is ready to be picked up.

A B2C custom app can also be installed on tablets and set up in your store as a kiosk or a unique searching experience.  While foot traffic may be down, and this may be due to consumers doing their research online first, there are still some who are walking into brick and mortar stores looking to benefit from the expertise of a real live salesperson.  For those shoppers, you can offer the best of both worlds: the diversity and spread of a global virtual inventory all from a tablet guided by the hand of your trained salesperson. 

Using a digital interface means that the salesperson can help the buyer pinpoint exactly what they are looking for, educate them on the different options available, and in short show them exactly what our terminology means. By creating such a unique shopping experience, your customer is sure to remember you and to visit your store the next time they have a purchase in mind.

You Don’t Have To Do It Alone 

So now that you see why you need a customized app, you may be wondering how to go about doing it.  Hiring a developer can be a costly investment, especially if you are starting from the ground up.  But you can easily partner with a company that offers various solutions that are already from the jewelry trade.  Having a partner like Virtual Diamond Boutique will enable you to get to market faster and you’ll be promoting your own app in no time! 

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Virtual Diamond Boutique is a global technology company serving the jewelry industry with a marketplace app and an entire digital toolbox for suppliers and retailers. They have combined deep jewelry industry knowledge with top technical talent to create jewelry technology that helps build store traffic, facilitates in-store engagement, and assists jewelers at all levels of the industry with sourcing, buying, and selling. For more information, visit VDB at www.vdbapp.com or email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..