Recent years have witnessed a tremendous increase in the use of smartphones such as the IPhone and android mobile handsets. Initially, the purpose with which these devices were developed was to simply communicate with family and friends. But now these have multiple uses, which have further diluted the manmade and physical boundaries. The entire credit for the same goes to the spate of mobile applications that have been developed over the last few years.  Over the period of time, these have also proved to be potential business tools.

One of the main reasons of exponential success of mobile applications is their wide reach.  Moreover, the prominent operating systems like Android and iOS allow people to create and distribute apps easily. As per a statistic, about 20 billion apps have been downloaded over a period of 3 years, which indicates at strong user base of the mobile applications and the magnitude of business generation possibilities.

Business firms can utilize mobile applications for almost all kind of services. They can offer apps that promise general services to people.  From making a reservation for a table in a restaurant, rail and air tickets, holidays to sending gifts, applications can serve multiple purposes. Mobile apps that provide instant news and update on international affairs are the preferred ones among mobile users.  Other popular apps are the ones that facilitate online shopping and business opportunities.  Social networking mobile apps such as Facebook, Twitter etc make it possible for customers to express their loyalty for a brand by joining its particular page. At the same time, it gives them access to all the latest information, innovations, products and services that the brand in question has to offer.

Mobile apps are user-friendly, making it convenient for customers to use them often.  This in return ensures a healthy return on investment (ROI) for the businesses. The biggest advantage that apps promise is that their use can be easily analyzed using statistics. The number of apps downloaded, updates and the percentage of users using them, all the data is easily available, making it a win-win situation for users and developers of apps.

We at Centex Technologies, Dallas, provide Mobile Application Development for businesses. We develop business applications for IPhone and android phones. For more information, call us at our Dallas Tx office - (855) 375-9654

Social networking sites are becoming a favorite spot for promoting products and services due to the wide and free coverage they offer. There is no better way of reaching out to the masses all over the world for promoting a product and getting instant feedback on your efforts. Owing to the mass appeal of such sites, Facebook is all set to launch a gifts and collection feature, which will encourage users to use the site as a means of gifting stuff to friends and family in addition to letting the world know what they like.

The first to be launched would be the gifts feature, which is specially designed to make it possible for users to gift products to their friends while Facebook gets to squeeze out some amount from the gift price. Facebook has gone a step beyond online advertizing and is all set to deal in the sale and purchase of physical products. Gifting via Facebook would be a unique and innovative form of e-commerce that would not require any mailing address. Recipient can fill out the address where he/she wants to receive the product on their own. Even though the recipients will not be shown the cost of the product, Gifts feature will allow them to choose the size, color and other details of the products that they would like to have even before you make payment for it.

Below is a screenshot of steps to order a gift as provided by Facebook.

Another unique feature that was recently tested by facebook and is to be rolled out in near future is “Collections”.  Collections Feature will allow merchants to post products on their business page and let users to “want”, “collect”, or “like” a product. A product that is “liked” or “collected” is to be put on a new Timeline feature known as “products” thus showing the products you fancy to your friends. With Collections, the users can add items they wish to own from specific retailers on their wish list. The Collections feature will be a good selling medium for online retailers as they will be able to interact with customers on Facebook which will be helpful in generating potential sales.

Even though e-commerce through social networking sites is a new concept, chances are it will pick up amongst people. Social shopping will soon be the new norm where socializing and shopping will go hand in hand. The gifts and collections feature on Facebook will give an exciting twist to e-commerce that is sure to appeal to modern day retailers and consumers.

We at Centex Technologies, Dallas, Texas provide Ecommerce Marketing and SEO. Our Team of online marketing executives helps online merchants to post their products to multiple Comparison Shopping Websites. We also do Search Engine Optimization for Ecommerce portals. For more information, call us at our Dallas office - (855) 375-9654