A complete guide to creating an e-commerce app
The E-commerce website, what was once a revolution has been commemorated by the e-commerce app (application). Indeed! Mobile e-commerce app(application) with the slogan “Shop on-the-go” is reigning today over smart users and their smartphones. Amazon, the biggest player in the e-commerce game, along with its counterfeit Alibaba, eBay, Walmart, has become an integral part of people, while shopping centers and supermarkets are being reduced to “selfie zones”, “window shopping mode” and “check-in”.
Who would want to save the valuable time of their weekends, making long lines at the check-in desk, waiting for their turn while France plays against Croatia! Well, with the mobile e-commerce application, all they can do is buy and yet never lose the game. Therefore, an e-commerce application is an impressive game-changer in many different ways.
That is the mobile e-commerce application for you!
Who does not dream of having a successful business with customers crowded throughout the store? The mobile e-commerce application can be your dream come true, as it can target customers all over the world and you don’t have to travel to the market for your brand; That is an additional advantage.
Recently, there has been a large increase in the demand to create a mobile e-commerce application. Every day, new companies are entering the e-commerce business and all they point to is the first mobile, second website!
Simply put, if you are an aspiring e-commerce entrepreneur, you have reached the right page. Let me tell you that developing a mobile e-commerce application is not a big problem today, especially with the emergence of tools and technologies.
And the future of e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality technologies are adorned to renew the e-commerce ecosystem completely with unforeseen features such as virtual locker rooms. I must say that even the future of electronic commerce is too bright and now is the time when you should seriously consider creating your own mobile electronic commerce application.
For starters, it is important that you define your e-commerce business objectives as clearly as possible. What kind of mobile e-commerce application do you want to launch your business: Android or iOS? What will be your product? Who is your target audience? What brands are you targeting?
Once this is ordered, you can move on to the next important step that involves defining the correct features for your mobile e-commerce application.
The features are the reflection of your USP. That will make a difference for your target audience when it comes to an e-commerce application. Basically, they are the decisive factors of whether your income grows or flows to your competitors. Therefore, it is important to plan the features to develop your mobile e-commerce application.
Below is a list of features extracted from the successful mobile e-commerce application and you cannot afford to lose any of these:
A Simpler Registration Process:
As easy as it sounds, it can be comprehensive for your customers and they could simply choose to uninstall the application with pages and pages of information to complete. Who has time anyway! Ensure an easy registration process. Now that everyone has a social media account, you can enable sign-up and sign-in with a maximum of two clicks, and your customer will be on board! Also, an additional brownie point to learn your preferences through your digital age in your social media accounts!
Supports Multiple Payment Options:
Let’s say you have a big fat customer who buys mainly online and visits his mobile e-commerce application to try it. After throwing your things in the cart, you realize that you don’t have the payment option you prefer. You just lost a great customer. And many more who prefer the payment option that your application does not offer.
To play more securely and intelligently as an e-commerce entrepreneur, you must open the doors to the most popular payment methods. With the credit card, debit card, net banking, and electronic wallets at the top, be sure to subtly press your customers to use the integrated wallet of your application.
Push Notifications:
Your clients have their needs and desires, you have the supply required to satisfy them, but how to close this communication gap? Push notification is the key!
The Push Notification is one of the most important features that map the success of a mobile e-commerce application. They improve customer participation, as it keeps them informed about the reference, discounts, sales, promotions and offers so that they come back for more. This, in turn, gives you the opportunity to cross-sell and increase sales for better profits.
Social Media Integration:
Don’t tell me you don’t want ALL the attention of your customers. You even want your time on social networks. And your demand is justified taking into account the fact that you are running a business.
Not only for the one-touch login, but the integration of social networks will also ensure that your mobile e-commerce application is right in front of your customers wherever they are; chatting on Facebook, tweeting on Twitter or anchoring on Pinterest. This will also help them easily share their special discounts on their social media accounts. What could be more enjoyable than word of mouth and user-generated content! An electronic commerce application that harnesses the power of social integration works: it is as simple as that when it comes to an electronic commerce application.
Complete Synchronization:
It has its e-commerce website and a mobile e-commerce application. He came up with a very exciting feature that will surely play a chord with his target audience and take his shopping experience to the next level. But you must launch this function before your competitor does. You want a better time to market, but with the edits made on both portals separately, time seems to have stopped. What would you do?
Accelerate the process by synchronizing our mobile e-commerce application with the website. Save a lot of time, win the competition and increase your sales.
Google Analytics:
It’s just been a while since you launched your eCommerce business. You think you are doing well so far. But how do you judge what works for and against your business if you leave your gut feeling aside?
Ok, as always, Google Analytics has the answer you want. Optimize the use of Google Analytics to find out how your customers really are in your mobile application using real-time data. Know which product of yours needs a different packaging, what offers can make an appealing combo, and which demography is resonating well to your business, all this with Google analytics. Your use of electronic commerce will certainly increase from strength to strength.
Review & Rating:
Don’t shy away from the fear of receiving bad reviews and bad product ratings. A savvy businessman is a man open to criticism and learning.
Allow your customers to review and rate your application and its features. The possibility is that the products you are offering are nowhere on the wish list of your buyers and the reviews will help you achieve this sense of accomplishment. Again, after the improvements, do not delete the negative comments, rather thank them and show the steps you have taken. This will make them feel important and who knows they will adhere to your brand as usual!
Wishlist Button:
It is the end of the month. The salary is one week and their clients do not want to miss what they recently discovered. You want to buy it, not now, but definitely after a week. Let the wish list play its part.
The wish list can sometimes be a saviour for your sales. Help your customers save the products they want to buy later. In addition, you get an advantage over knowing your buyer’s preferences and personalised offers and SOLD!
Easy Checkout:
All the enthusiasm and energy of their customers have gone to make their choices and add items to the cart. Now is the hard part: the payment!
To make sure they don’t leave the cart, create your payment process as easy as possible. Help them save the details of their card and electronic wallet and take them faster through the payment gateways. As stated earlier, your customers hate waiting in the billing queue, don’t let them wait with the virtual billing system too!
There are already thousands of mobile e-commerce applications in the market. You must stand out from the crowd and these characteristics will help you make a move. If you follow a customer approach first by providing them the easiest to buy, you can easily retain your customers. On the other hand, when your competitor has an incredible experience to offer in reference to the features, your customers will feel inclined to them.
In this situation, the smart way is to create a mobile e-commerce application with the correct functions and avoid any fluff that can take away the customer participation rate. Make them feel that you understand the problems they face when shopping with another mobile application and the solution. Give them the value of the time, energy and money they spend with your mobile app. This is the only important key to win over its customers and has an advantage over its competitors.
Things to keep in mind when creating a mobile e-commerce application:
From the conceptualization of what will be the USP of your mobile e-commerce application to launch a Beta version, there are many important aspects that must be taken into account.
With time, experience, and analytical skills, I have compiled a comprehensive guide with elaborate information on important aspects of application development.
If you are a newbie, you can feel the difficulties from the beginning. I could even end up digging up the whole business idea. But don’t fall yet. We are here to help.
The basics of any mobile e-commerce application remain the same. All you need to add is that pinch of your brand and the spark of your USP so that your business stands out and stays on top of the Google search engine results. Some of the fundamentals that you should consider basic when creating a mobile e-commerce application are:
- Easy navigation
- UI / UX with correct features
- Visual appeal
- Brand integration if you are interested in the electronic commerce of several stores
Inventory management
Here is an ideal step-by-step process to create and launch a mobile e-commerce application that must continue on its path to run a successful e-commerce business.
Consider your commercial e-commerce objective even before starting the development process. Know what uniqueness it brings or what problem you will solve for your customers with your e-commerce business.
Do not go “all-inclusive” with the launch of your business. You need to know what gender you should aim for. You need to know a lot! Start small but concrete. Expand only when your business is ready. Get help from talents and application development experts to update your commercial version. Take a look at this guide to outsource the best application developers.
In the urge to follow the ABC of your e-commerce business, don’t forget the M for Marketing. You should contact your potential customers to help them communicate with you.
Attract them with references on board, convert them with your USP, close your sales by keeping them engaged and delight them with information about the products they need and offer.
In short, everything depends on the quality of development. Hire experts passionate about their work as much as you do for the e-commerce business of your dreams. Keep them by providing the benefits and incentives that are best in the industry.
Key aspects for the development of e-commerce applications
Before continuing, let me give you a detailed idea of the key aspects you should focus on while developing a mobile e-commerce app:-
Market Analysis and Buyer Person:
The basis of the development of a mobile e-commerce application is to determine the personality of the buyer for your business. Ask yourself, “Who do you sell your products to?” “Therefore, do your research for your target group.
Analyze the actions and procedures of the group you want to study. Know your digital age and your likes and dislikes. This will help you create your application as easy as possible for them.
Meet your competitors:
Extract a list of your competitors. Create a separate list of what they like and what makes them the obvious choice for buyers. Do not duplicate its characteristics or your business model, rather research well on the business model and make the most of your analysis.
Technology choice:
Learn the ins and outs of your business to decide on the technology to create your mobile e-commerce app. Control the development budget, know your inventory and select the CMS, the database, the framework and, most importantly, the backend and frontend languages to code your application.
If you want a better time to market, choose the hybrid application, if you want sustainability, choose a native. Similarly, you must decide if you want to start an Android application, an iOS application or both at the same time, taking into account the use of your target audience’s device to design your e-commerce application.
UI and UX Design:
Give your brand the voice it deserves through combinations of soft colors, attractive images and smooth transitions for its customers from one page to another. Create options for your logo and make the most of it. That will be the identity of your company for your target customers. Play with the subconscious mind of your customers by taking advantage of smart brand tactics to create a lasting impression.
Cost of developing a mobile e-commerce application:
Ultimately, it comes down to who is investing and how much is investing. Without a doubt, the budget is the main concern for the development of the application. To save you from these budgetary dilemmas, I have created some tips for you to remember while moving forward in application development:
- Features, Whether you want to start your e-commerce application with MVP, or a mixed bag with MVP and advanced features, or a mobile e-commerce application complete with advanced features.
- Android or iOS? The price of iOS is on the top side, decide which device you want to be the main one for your business. You can upgrade your business later at any time.
- The development of expensive low maintenance backend or low maintenance and high maintenance third party APIs.
- A better time to market with the development of hybrid applications or better sustainability with the development of native applications? Choose wisely, you are in the long-term business game.
- The outsourcing of resources has a visible effect on your budget, so you should be very careful when hiring them.
Again, a number cannot be projected with respect to the cost of developing a mobile e-commerce app, as there are variables. However, to be as useful as possible, I have made an estimation based on the trends I have witnessed considering the generic application development scenario.
- If we consider the most basic version of the application with only the MVP features and the simple UI / UX design, the projected price can reach $ 10-12K per development only. However, very little support and maintenance are required.
- If we consider a combination of basic features that include some advanced features, the price can go up from $ 12-15K
- If we consider that the application is developed with advanced functions, then the price can be as high as $ 20-25K$.
You can also try this App Cost Calculator to get a ballpark figure, however, the best approach for you is to make a custom list of software development companies based on their expertise, skills, and other factors and share your requirements with them.
Outsource developers for the development of mobile e-commerce applications:
Because of your workload, you want to outsource resources and qualified developers to create your mobile e-commerce app.
Based on your work scope, you would like to outsource resources and expert developers to build your mobile e-commerce app.
There are many different types of pricing models that you can choose from: time-based, scope based, fixed price and fixed time pricing model, or hiring dedicated resources.
Dedicated Resource-based Hiring:
When opting for hiring based on dedicated resources, make sure you know the scope of the job and that you are not paying for an additional resource when it comes to e-commerce applications.
To develop a basic version of your mobile e-commerce app, you will need:
- UI and UX designer
- 2 – 4 Android Developers
- Quality Assured Engineer
- Backend developer
- Project manager
After this virtual tour to develop a mobile e-commerce app, are you ready to enter the real world with the actual hiring of qualified resources for your real e-commerce app?
Having helped weigh all the angles of your mobile e-commerce application, we can be the partners in your efforts with our rich experience that is worth boosting. We believe in work than in words. Take a look at several case studies that are written every time we face a new challenge and the creative solution we provide.
Nothing better than a customer talking to a customer. Know what our customers have to say about our work and achievements. Still not convinced? Here we are with practical and live applications that we have created for our customers. You can continue testing these applications, who knows that you can find your perfect application development partner!
We would love to be part of the development of a mobile e-commerce app.
Send an inquiry about your needs and our experts will contact you as soon as possible to make your e-commerce business possible.
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