As with several other app industries, there was a huge spike in the use of stock trading and investing during the coronavirus pandemic. Millions of stay-at-home people were able to trade stocks, indices and options using new zero-commission mobile apps.
As the financial and banking industry is now more open to non-bank institutions, entrepreneurs are free to build apps that allow users to trade assets without restrictions. The market is full of them, and new ones keep popping up. Really, this is not surprising. As more and more users are willing to make such transactions, the demand for new apps that support such transactions is growing. Each app has its own niche and way of working, and many may remain undiscovered. So who knows, maybe your trading app will become the new unicorn in this market?
Stock trading markets overview
Stock trading apps democratize market trading. They offer financial instruments such as stocks, zero shares, ETFs, precious metals, bonds, and more. The online stock trading platform market is valued at $13.1 billion in 2019 and is expected to reach $18.3 billion by 2027. According to this September 2019 Statista report, Android financial mobile apps have a high penetration rate of 25.75%. This interest in stock trading apps has been around for some time, with searches related to such apps, for example, increasing by 115% between September 2016 and September 2017.
Stock trading app users(per year)
There is no doubt that demand is growing and that well-designed apps with the right marketing strategy are indeed successful. Let's take Robinhood as an example; they have grown by 4 million users per year since 2017. They generated $682 million in order flow payment revenue in 2020, an increase of 514% compared to the previous year. Other popular stock trading apps include TD Ameritrade, Webull, Ally, E*TRADE, Acorns, Stash, eToro, and Revolut.
Stock trading app revenue(per app)
Robinhood leads with zero commissions in the U.S. and has been the leading platform used by those investing in "modal stocks" such as GameStop and AMC Entertainment. larger investment platforms, such as Carlson Financial and E-Trade in the U.S., have reduced their commissions to Larger investment platforms, such as Carlson Financial and E-Trade in the U.S., have reduced commissions to better compete with Robinhood. Other features have been added, such as fractional shares and interest on balances. In the UK and Europe, several startups such as Trade Republic and Freetrade are trying to become the Robinhood of Europe, while older platforms such as eToro and Plus 500 have reduced their fees to better compete.
Stock trading app users(per app)
Case study - the most popular stock trading apps
All of the successful apps on the market have clearly defined unique selling points and niches; Acorns has an overview, Stockpile offers $5 per new user, Round offers human advisors instead of algorithms, and E-Trade focuses on long-term investing. If you are looking for stock trading software development to deliver the best results, it is recommended that you analyze your competitors. Namely, stock trading apps that are already performing well in the market. Here, we discuss some of them.
● E-Trade App
● Robinhood
● Stash
● Acorns
E-Trade App
E-Trade App - This is one app you must research. Among the most successful stock trading apps, E-Trade app has been successfully pleasing users for decades, enabling investors and traders to easily interact with the stock market. It is the most optimized app solution with advanced features that are perfect for making trades, tracking the latest stock market information, updating quotes, and most importantly, providing all these features in real time.
Robinhood
Robinhood - The free trading platform allows to compile personal lists of financial credit documents and securities documents, get real-time information about quotes and trade the company's shares without paying transaction fees. The app's income is paid with the accumulated interest on the user's account.
Robinhood offers free stock trading and helps its users to search, manage and trade their stocks. Another reason for its success is that they launched their mobile app before their official website. In the current mobile era, mobile apps are best suited to reach a wide audience.
The free version of the app provides access to ETFs, Bitcoin and stocks. Thus, by offering powerful features in the free version, this stock market app has been a huge success in the stock trading space.
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Stash
Stash is very popular among beginners in stock market investing. stash helps its users to make small investments and provides them with the knowledge they need in the world of stock trading. It offers a lot of tips and blogs, thus making the user's investment journey relatively smooth.
Acorns
Acorns - The stock trading app is best suited for people who are interested in stock trading but don't know where and how to invest. After the user connects their debit or credit card to their Acorns account, the app rounds up each purchase and saves the changes next to a dollar in their Acorns account. In addition, users can perform this process manually from within the app.
Understanding the user profile of stock trading apps
You will focus your design, development and promotion efforts primarily on four categories of users.
- Young people who are still figuring out if the stock investment game is for them.
- Novice investors who have very few skills but want to start their trading journey immediately.
- Professionals who value time and want to get in and out of the experience quickly.
- Tech-savvy users who want to have all their information and statistics in one place.
Key features in stock trading app
Registration
Usually, there are short and long registrations. The former should be simple and contain as few steps as possible. For example, Revolut allows you to register using your basic personal information, email address and only validates your phone number. Easy Login allows your users to use features that do not require more in-depth user information; for financial and trading features, they need to complete a long registration/KYC/AML.
Dashboard
The dashboard should contain the main information that users need to see immediately when they open the stock trading app, such as
- user fund balance.
- basic growth/decline charts.
- user's watch list and holdings.
- the value of the portfolio.
- most promising opportunities.
Charts should be filterable, for example, by period, asset or wallet. Users may want the possibility to charge their accounts directly. They should be able to view the performance of their specific assets directly from the dashboard, see the most profitable assets, categorize them, etc.
User portfolio
The user portfolio is where users can analyze their assets in detail and make further investment decisions. While it is usually displayed as a graph or list, it is a good idea to allow filtering and modification of the visualization on the go. The portfolio should consist of asset groups that are automatically set and customized by the user. The data in the charts should be in real time to best reflect changes in the market.
Deposits (Payments)
The most common way to convert currency into assets is to deposit funds into a virtual wallet in the app and then use those funds in the wallet to purchase assets. This money can be deposited via bank transfer, credit/debit card, PayPal, Google or Apple Pay. This is a great option when users can set up automatic deposits. In addition, deposits should be made in real time to make the user experience flawless.
Trading features
The core of every stock trading app like Robinhood is - probably not surprisingly - the trading functionality. Trading starts with stock screening. Usually, it's just a list of stocks filtered and sorted according to the user's preferences. Each position should contain detailed data about the stock, such as stock price, number of shares, a line or candlestick showing the stock's performance, earnings per share, profit margin, balance sheet, company description, company details and news, earnings, analyst ratings. It is good to have real-time stock prices; not every app offers this feature and it is especially useful for users who make quick investment decisions.
Once the user of the stock trading app decides what to invest in, the number of steps to complete the trade should be relatively small. Select a stock, click invest, select quantity, buy - that's it. Execution of orders and money flow should be smooth and quickly updated.
Trade learning
It is not only experienced investors who use stock trading apps. Novice traders are also their users. That's why some apps offer a learning feature that teaches how to invest and how to make the most of the app.
Market insights
The stock market is susceptible to any changes that occur in listed stocks, so traders usually like to have the most relevant market insight in the app. This information can be provided in the form of media headlines about stocks that appear in the buy/sell section.
Notifications and alerts
Stock trading requires quick responses and relevant data at your fingertips. Alerts and notifications allow users to receive information about underlying increases and decreases, events, and income. Typically, users can set their custom alerts, for example, when a stock value reaches a certain threshold.
App Store Optimization - take an organic approach to gain loyal users
According to AppRader, 50% of mobile users search for stores to install apps.
Therefore, after launching your stock trading app, you should optimize it for the app store metadata. ASO brings you a large number of loyal users who last a long time.
App name and subtitle
For how to apply name and subtitle keyword placement, you can click on "
ASO Creation Strategy: How to Create a Perfect Name?"
For choosing keywords for your stock trading app, you also need to pay attention to the following points.
- Name and subtitle are limited to 30 characters. Use them for the keywords that will win you traffic.
- Investing" and "Investing" are completely different words for the algorithm, so if you want to target both, you need to include both. Or, focus on the one that fits your strategy better.
- The name and subtitle are combined by the algorithm, so you want to find the keywords that generate useful keywords when combined together.
You can also try the following terms that are optimized, manipulated, and can be combined well together
trade,trading,trader,stock,buy,bitcoin,crypto,market,tracker,bitcoin,ethereum,wallet,brokerage,investor
Icons
Finance icon colors, we can see that the standard for finance (and even external apps) is almost unanimous in the app store, with blue, green and purple leading the way. I'm afraid there is not much lively neon pink or canary yellow. The easier a brand logo is to recognize, the greater the chance it will lead to better performance, as users will immediately associate the app with a brand they already know (and with which they want to be positively associated).
For new brands with less brand capital, it's worth trying to use unique or different icons to stand out and increase the likelihood that the app will gain more interest in the form of clicks and installs. By conveying a differentiating message, enough users can be attracted to the app to motivate them to explore the app store page further.
Screenshots
There are a few things to keep in mind when creating screenshots.
- All screenshots have a caption and associated user interface.
- There is enough contrast to make the captions very easy to read + they are short, so they are more likely to be read.
- Changing colors between screenshots is both fun and engaging.
App ratings and reviews
App reviews and ratings are very important conversion incentives that help users decide whether they want to download the app or not.
On January 28, 2021, the trading app Robinhood received over 220,000 negative reviews on the Play store in just one hour after blocking the purchase of AMC and GameStop stock. robinhood's merchandise details were heavily influenced by these events. With an average rating of 1 star and thousands of negative reviews displayed first, their decision to stop stock trading is likely to affect the conversion rate of their app, especially for those who do not follow the GameStop stock saga and are looking for the best trading app.
The first few reviews that appear on the Apple Store Robinhood app page are positive. Users had to scroll down through the first 10 reviews to find the 1-star reviews related to the event. This may be due to the algorithm showing the most relevant and useful reviews on iOS first, which are supported by other users.
By understanding the differences between Google and Apple's algorithms in displaying reviews, you can optimize app reviews accordingly.
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