Apple Store launched "Shopping category" for convenient e-commerce

Apple is continuously adding incredible features and apps for easy consumer use. It considered the needs of online shoppers to carry out an effortless and convenient process of buying.

According to TechCrunch, Apple launched a separate and distinguished 'shopping category' on the 5th of November, that is expected to assist the consumers to explore e-commerce apps like omni-channel, auctions, price comparison, product reviews and other similar applications. Previously, these apps were listed under the "Lifestyle" category in the App Store's along with wide range of other noticeable applications. These applications include journals, dating apps, real estate and home improvement apps, smart home application, nightlife apps, wedding apps and more. The jumbled up App store leaded to a confused, inconvenient and 'frustrating' online shopping process.

After given a separate identify, it is anticipated to boost the download rate and consumer usage for online shopping through large businesses like Wal-mart and J.C. Penney, as well as coupon apps like Groupon and can help finding easy product review and price comparison apps, according to the report of RetailDive. In addition, the new feature has the potential to boost discoverability of the 'lesser known commerce apps' listed under the same category.

According to Tech Crunch, number of apps including Apple store, Best Buy, the Disney Store, Etsy, Everlane, Gilt, Groupon, Hautelook, JackThreads, Kohl's, Instacart, Nordstrom, Pinterest, Priceline, Sephora, Staples, Starbucks, Target, Uber, Walgreens, Zappo's, Zulily and others are supporting Apple Pay, an Apple's mobile paymen'ts technology.

Jennifer Bailey, vice president of Internet services for Apple Pay, said that mobile shopping has been the fastest-growing ecommerce segment, especially in apps.

As reported by Appleinsider, other than adding "Shop with Apple Pay" app, Apple also introduced other shopping-related app collections for wedding planning, deals, shopping for kids, fashion and more. As previously, all these apps were lying under same Lifestyle section, it became difficult surfacing the necessary apps among these.

According to Forrester Research, mobile commerce is expected to reach $115 billion this year and grow to $252 billion by 2020, as mentioned by Retaildive.

"The challenge with apps is that shopping apps don't get enough frequency of use for most merchants to make it useful to download them," Forrester analyst Sucharita Mulpuru-Kodali told WWD.