How to Decide Between Mobile App and Responsive Website #infographic

The evolution of information is in the reach of your hand. Almost anything and everything can be done from the smartphone.

Most of the fast moving business already realized that present and future of business industry is “Mobile”.

But that realization can bring a business owner to a different set of problems. How to decide what to choose for their business.

Is it a native mobile app or a responsive website?

The story of a responsive website

Mary have a cake shop. She also had a small website which cater as a catalog for her cakes.  She has her contact information available there. So people can call her and do offline ordering.

At the scenario above, it works. But the reach is somewhat limited because people can’t browse her website on the go. And, they also can’t order directly. This also limits possibilities to become more visible and land more sales.

So what should be the right direction for her? Does she really need to spend a lot of time find developers to develop custom Mobile app for her business?

No; Mary just needs a mobile responsive web site that is friendly to almost all kinds of smartphones and tablets.

Why Mary choose responsive website option?

• For a small business owner, developing rich native mobile app are costly.
• Managing the apps and updating them requires dedicated workforce. Mary is managing her business alone , so it would be really difficult to manage app developers.
• Responsive website is faster to build. Much more simple to implement. It just works on all the smart devices. With a CMS like WordPress; Mary can manage the content just spending 30 minutes a day.
• Mary’s website is online and known to customers. It is now fully accessible to everyone with a smart devices.
• Mary can take advantage of the power of SEO. Reaching many more via social media and the Google search engine.
• Better yet, Mary’s website is now a fully functional responsive store that can take order online and process credit card via PayPal.

The cost was at least one 3rd compare to a native mobile app  by building responsive website for her business.

Story of a native mobile app

Zaim, he is a founder of a start-up. The product he developed, is a smart home device that lets you control your home appliances. There is a lot of technology involved underneath.

This smart home device does not have a communication interface. So that means, it will need an interface that will be able to configure the device. While computers can be a great choice, it is not always available on your hand. Obviously, smartphone platforms are better choice for that.

Why Zaim choose a native mobile app option?

• He is building premium class consumer device. That will require a interface other than a computer
• The interface will communicate to the smart home device and it will help end user to configure the device. A lot of native processing will be in use, such as Bluetooth and/or WiFi connection. Both of these options are available on any native smart phone apps.
• Since it is a native companion app for the main product, it will provide a seamless experience to the end user. They will be able to receive and transmit notifications from the smart home device.
• He already has a technical team that manages the app development process for the long run.

So, at the end of the day:

It really depends what is your business need. As a business owner, you have to ask yourself the right questions to sort it out.

Here is a very useful infographic that explains the 10 question you should ask yourself. This would help you to decide between native mobile app or responsive website.

If you are interested to have responsive website for your small business. Just drop me a line.

Infographic via Visual.ly

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