How App Marketplaces are Changing the Game for Tech Markets
It’s a cut-throat world out there. Clients and customers crave and expect more from products. Rivals are heading towards more market share at a breakneck pace. Every business aspires to gain an edge over others, but how do you do that consistently? How can you get your hands on a sustainable competitive advantage, particularly without withdrawing your team from other key projects? The range of choices and the constraints can indeed be paralyzing for technology businesses. To stay competitive, enterprises need to acclimatize to a different set of requirements through various verticals. However, the product remains straightforward to – plug and play.
What are App Marketplaces?
An app marketplace refers to an online platform that enlists software applications for mobile devices and desktop computers. Commonly, desktop applications also have their mobile versions. Apps are also created to run a particular operating system like macOS, iOs, Android, or Windows. This promises users of all devices to gain complete access to the same novel products.
An app marketplace exhibits multiple listings and offers in-depth and topical information on every application. Usually, you will find information such as:
- Application’s name and a general category
- A brief description of the app’s functionalities
- A description of features of the app
- A guide on how to use the app
- Industries or types of business that employ the app successfully
- A brief video of the app in its action
- If the app has its mobile version or not
When buying a business software, a specific app store of a SaaS company will give instances of compatible software. When arranged well, you can look at the different types of apps in the app store that suit your industry and business type.
Benefits of App Marketplaces
App marketplaces have changed the way platforms connect with their end-users. Having an app marketplace today is a table-stakes feature for new and established platforms. Videoconferencing trailblazer Zoom experienced immense growth in the year 2020, when work from home was becoming a norm. Although initially, they launched the application without a marketplace, they declared the Zoom apps’ availability in July 2021. Raking revenue for the business and your third-party developers is just one of the many perks of running an app in the marketplace. Other benefits are as follows:
- Marketing and PR: App marketplaces offer Public Relations and marketing opportunities to endorse your platform. Your business’s health in PR campaigns and marketing can be gauged by a growing content register. Platforms can also discover opportunities for co-marketing as bigger third-part developers develop content like workflows for the platforms, apps, and integrations.
- Customer retention: Customers tend to use the platform more when you increase its functionality and features and offer them via an app marketplace. Personalization for businesses and end-user requirements ascertain that your platforms become an indispensable component of the customer’s business or technology stack.
- Raising the platform profile: You can attract more interest and inspire more awareness through app marketplaces with third-part developers and customers. Applications and other content can enhance your value proposition and core messaging. Presenting success stories of other developers further extends the value for existing and future customers.
Top 3 most established B2B app marketplaces
When it comes to app marketplaces, there are dozens of them that have taken the world by storm. However, here we have collated the top three of those to help you narrow down your choices and thus, decide better and easily. Read on!
- AppExchange: So far, AppExchange has remained the biggest and most successful marketplace of its type. This is the world’s leading cloud marketplace, which intends to drive fast results and extend the customer with sure-fire apps and experts from anywhere across every department, industry, and product.
- Microsoft Partner Network: There are three app marketplaces for Microsoft from which its partners can choose, namely, Office Store, Windows Store, and AppSource. Nonetheless, AppSource is their sole app marketplace that clearly focuses on enterprises. It enables one to try out applications before purchasing them.
- Service Now: This is the fastest booming enterprise Saas company that has more than $1 billion in revenue. The ServiceNow store now presents over 350 enterprise applications established on the Service Now platform by solution providers, service providers, system integrators, and third-party ISVs. The marketplace features both free and paid cloud-native organizations applications and integrations.
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