We have a Corporate Mobile Payments Team at Barclays that specifically help our clients with questions such as this.
Their view is that this depends on a number of factors – for example, what’s your business model, who are your competitors, what are your overheads and how have you decided on pricing?
Biding your time
Many digital companies are not monetising their products, services or apps directly but are focussing on a strategy that builds a user base first that can be monetised (either through acquisition by another company or monetisation of the customer’s data).
The ’freemium’ model is also popular which encourages free usage up to a point; subsequent usage or value-adds are then chargeable (monetised).
It is worth bearing in mind that the purchase of digital goods within an app and delivered and used within that app are subject to costs from the app stores so this needs to be understood and built into your business model at the outset.
The journey
Increasing conversion needs to be looked at as part of the full user journey – from awareness of your product (marketing and promotion) all the way through to action (purchase or usage).
In general terms, keeping the user journey simple, relevant and with clear navigation and actions will help increase conversion.
One particular challenge that mobile devices face is the high number of abandonments at checkout due to confusing payment journeys and errors inputting data on small devices.
Harris Interactive have recently reported that approx. 70% of all mobile users have cancelled their orders at this point. There are a few products available today that greatly simplify the payment process on mobile, this is a key area of focus for the payments industry as mobile commerce sets to grow.
We have published several research papers on mobile strategy and commerce that can be found here.