As fantastic as the iPhone browsing experience is in comparison to its predecessors, the fact is that it’s far from perfect. You can check your email, browse a couple of sites etc,  but if you were looking to make a purchase from your favourite shopping website, it would be a “finicky” job to say the least.

This is, of course, what inspired so many retailers to develop mobile apps that simplify the process. Amazon, eBay, AllSaints, Sainsbury’s… big retailers with iPhone (and some cross platform too) apps that enable a user to make purchase from their phone quickly and easily.

You can see the appeal when you look at the numbers:

• 10 million Brits using mobile internet
• 26% of the UK mobile user base has a Smartphone
• 23% of the UK’s mobile user base browses the Internet via mobile.

That’s a massive potential market.

As an avid online shopper myself I was slow, to say the least, when it came to adopting shopping on my iPhone, but as more and more people took it up, I followed suit and openly admit now to making (often impulse) Amazon purchases while standing at bus stops! But another application I’ve personally found for eCommerce iPhone Apps is price checking while out on the High Street. If you’re going to make particularly pricey purchase, it’s always worth checking the price online and I generally make the Amazon app my first port of call. If I’m not sure about the price in the shop I’m in, I’ll check it on Amazon and purchase from my iPhone if it’s a better deal.

There’s mixed opinions as to whether or not eCommerce mobile apps will ever completely replace the traditional internet shopping experience. But irrespective of where you stand on that debate, there’s no argument against the fact that mobile application shopping opens up your virtual store to a new market and makes shopping more convenient and on-demand than ever before.