Are you having a difficult time deciding if you should have a mobile app or a mobile website for your business? Some retailers benefit from both while others need only a mobile responsive website. To help you make the decision, let’s take a look at the differences between the two.

A mobile app is an application built specifically for a smartphone, whether iPhone or Android.

A mobile responsive website is a browser-based application that can run on a mobile device, tablet, laptop or desktop computer. Simply put, it is a website that adjusts its viewing size based on the size of the device it is being viewed on.

One needs to be online to view a website. In most cases this is not a problem. Either a wifi network is accessible or the person’s phone service will connect them to the internet. If an internet connection is not available or service is poor in a particular area, an app can still run on a mobile device. However, many apps still require a connection with the internet to sync information with a server.

Cost is always a factor in the decision-making. The cost to create a responsive website is much less than developing an app because it is created once and runs off the browser, so it doesn’t matter what type of phone users have. When creating an app, at least two versions need to be created – one for Apple and one for Android. A third optional version would be for a Windows phone.

If you decide to have both a mobile app and a mobile responsive website, they can be a great companion to each other. See the examples above.