Mobile Applications Expand to Office Supply Stores
Mobile App Developers Create Mobile Application for Office Depot
The mobile application industry is continuously expanding as individuals and companies are racing to hop aboard the mobile application bandwagon in hopes of having a better opportunity to reach their customers. One company which recently jumped aboard the bandwagon is Office Depot. The office supply store recently announced that it is entering the mobile application world with their very own mobile app which will launch on the iPhone and Android Smartphone devices in the near future.
Office Depot, a Boca Raton based office supply company said that the new mobile app will give customers to opportunity to browse and purchase products, read product reviews, find a store, access their order history, track a shipment and scan a product barcode in the store to get product descriptions, reviews and pricing. The first version of Office Depot’s mobile application is part of a larger strategy that the company has been aiming at developing called the “Office Depot Anywhere” strategy that aims to assist customers shop at their convenience through a variety of mobile platforms and m-commerce enabled sites. Office Deport feels confident that their mobile application will be a success and expects it to increase their revenue by giving clients the opportunity to purchase items on the go.
One of the main motives for Office Depot wanting to develop a mobile application (besides the fact that mobile applications have been gaining popularity and demand in all industries throughout the past year) is because a recent study conducted by ABI Research predicted that by 2015, shoppers worldwide are expected to spend about $119 billion on goods and services purchased through their Mobile Smartphone devices and through mobile applications. The trend of increasing mobile shopping has been growing in the United States as mobile online shopping rose from $396 million in 2008 to $1.2 billion in 2009 and that trend is only expected to go upwards from here on.
An additional feature which Office Depot’s mobile application will have is the ability for shoppers to create a mobile shopping cart that can follow them across multiple Smartphone devices. For example, if a customer were to go online through their computer but did not have time to complete their order, they can log onto their Office Depot mobile application and finish their order from there.
Office Depot plans to expand their mobile application throughout more Smartphone platforms in the future and already has plans to roll the mobile app out to the Blackberry and Microsoft operating systems, as well as tablet devices in the near future. Office Depot is clearly heading in the right direction with regards to reaching out to their customers through mobile applications and many mobile application developers and mobile app “experts” believe that this will not only generate higher sales opportunity for the company but also give customers much easier access to Office Depot’s offerings.