A Beginner’s Guide To eCommerce Mobile App Development

eCommerce mobile app development is the only future-proof concept today. Even a global pandemic couldn’t restrain the growth of mobile commerce solutions as people from around the world resorted to their apps to order food, groceries, products, services, essentials and more.

Having become intertwined with our lives, mobile eCommerce seems to have made desktops obsolete to an extent as well. Today, most of our purchases are impulsive and from our portable devices. We see a newsletter or a push notification on deals and we intend to immediately click on them and make a purchase. All our entertainment solutions are also through our mobile and tablet apps.

Key eCommerce App Development Statistics

To give you an idea of how much eCommerce application development has grown and has become an integral part of our lives, here are some quick statistics:

• Mobile apps are expected to generate a global revenue of over $935bn by 2023.
• Close to 21% of the millennials around the world access their apps over 50 times a day.
• The rest of the population opens apps over 11 times a day.
• There are between 10 and 30 different apps installed in the smartphone of an average user.
• Google Play features close to 2.87mn apps and Apple App Store houses close to 1.96mn apps.
• Over 79% of the users out there have bought a product or a service from their smartphone apps.
• Mobile-assisted purchases are also increasing in retail stores, where around 80% of the shoppers used an app to check out reviews, compare prices, view deals and do more.
• 78% of the users prefer to use an app over a website or a retail store.

These numbers are compelling and point towards the direction that your business needs to incorporate readymade ecommerce app development if it intends to remain relevant and competitive in the market. While your competitors are witnessing increased traffic, conversions and sales, you might be missing out on a potential opportunity and may even end up losing your loyal customers to your competitors.

This is the time to adapt, improvise and overcome and this extensive guide will help you do that in the most seamless way possible. We have compiled all the contextual information you need to get started with eCommerce mobile app development for your business and make way for profits in 2021.

So, let’s get started.

Inevitable Factors To Consider For eCommerce Mobile App Development

In this extensive guide, we will take a systematic approach to developing a mobile eCommerce app. That’s why we will take a ground up approach and understand the basic factors you need to consider when you venture into eCommerce app development.

Your Business Goal With Your App

Joining the eCommerce web application development bandwagon simply because your competitors are doing it could prove futile in the long run. You need to have a goal and a proper vision to make this outing profitable. While the current situation demands you to upgrade your modus operandi and service delivery mechanisms, without a strategic approach and a goal, obsoletion would be inevitable.

So, begin by setting up a goal. Break down the benefits of getting into eCommerce mobile app design and assign individual goals.

To help you get started, we have some examples:

• Increase organic traffic to your eCommerce app
• Increase your online visibility by 5X
• Optimize omnichannel marketing in the next three months
• Decrease cart abandonment rates by half
• Automate customer service and increase conflict resolutions
• Enable personalized services to customers
• Display more shopping options to your visitors and increase retention ratios and more

These are micro goals that will help you achieve your bigger goal of making profits with your eCommerce app. Clearly defining such goals will also help you work on the other aspects we are about to discuss further.

The Tech Stack

A mobile app is not just an aesthetically pleasing avenue where your customers would come, visit and leave. It’s a complicated system with millions of processes happening simultaneously at the backend. Every single module has a distinct purpose and the functions have to occur with clockwork precision to ensure customers have a seamless online experience on your app.

For instance, your app shouldn’t crash or lag during seasonal sales, it shouldn’t show different images and copies of products or services than the ones your customers are looking at, there shouldn’t be mismatch in personalization details and more.

To eliminate all these instances, you should focus on getting the right tech stack deployed for the app development process. The right tech infrastructure will help you roll out stable apps that perform exceptionally well in the market. With that said, your app shouldn’t just keep negative consequences at bay. It should also optimize user experience and add value to the time your visitors spend on your app.

That’s why our expert recommendation on technologies will help you develop the gamechanger app. Let’s quickly check them out.

Chatbots

Chatbots are currently a rage in the eCommerce mobile app development spectrum. They are becoming complementary modules for businesses in delivering optimized customer services. A lot of businesses have completely removed manual intervention in customer service aspects and replaced them with advanced chatbots. Chatbots are proving to be so beneficial that only 38% of the users intend to speak to a human associate. The rest are comfortable with chatbots.

To pave the way for more satisfied customers, we recommend implementing chatbots on your app.

Voice Search

This is the age of interface-less interactions. From buttons and touchscreens to gestures and now dictation, we are gradually moving towards more sophisticated ways of interacting with our devices. In this stage of evolution, the next big step is voice search. Users around the world are increasingly using voice commands to execute actions, make online purchases, retrieve information and do more.

Through smartphones, assistive devices like Alexa, Alexa-enabled devices and more, people are using voice inputs to get their job done. Statistics reveal that close to 90% of the voice searches are done on search engines and close to 20% are done on smartphones.

As consumer behavior takes a dynamic turn, you need to make your app ready for such shifts by incorporating voice search features in it. With voice search, you can make use of search engines’ local businesses listing functionalities and reach more people in your region as well.

AR

Abbreviated as Augmented Reality, this is one concept you cannot overlook when you’re thinking about eCommerce app development. You’ve seen it in apps like Instagram and Snapchat. They provide immersive experiences to your customers by blending graphics and visuals over real-world elements and environments.

AR is increasingly used in retail eCommerce apps to enable virtual tryouts, offer additional information about products, deliver product demos, take visitors on a virtual tour, incorporate gamification concepts and more.

Recommendation Engines

Often, your customers have no idea of purchasing something but it's on you to captivate them with products they are most likely to buy. This is the job of recommendation engines. With their advanced algorithms, these modules extensively study their users and understand their likes and dislikes, preferences, purchasing powers, purchasing patterns, items bought by their friends and families and more and recommend a product that is bang on up their alley. Recommendation engines are your gateway to profits.

Security

When we are discussing eCommerce mobile app development, we cannot overlook the importance of security and compliances. Today, customers want to have secured apps installed on their phones and even an iota of suspicion can lead to the uninstallation of your app.

That’s why it is not enough to launch a stable app but a secured one as well. You need to be a step ahead of hackers and intruders and patch every single security loophole with solutions. You should also ensure GDPR and privacy laws and regulations from around the world are adhered to and followed diligently to avoid lawsuits and repercussions.

Hassle-free Checkout

A major chunk of users judge a brand and its app based on how seamless the checkout procedure is. Purchasing options are quite universal across multiple brands and businesses but what sets your company apart from the competition is how you simplify your customers’ check out processes.

Do you ask them to sign up before they could purchase?

• Do you allow guest checkouts in your app?
• Do you add shipping charges at the last minute?
• Do you shock your customers with sudden and hidden charges that lead to cart abandonment?

Well, these are some questions you need to answer and resolve. Guests don’t like to sign up on another app and remember a password. Let them be a guest user. Also, make it a point to show the final price of a product from the initial point of contact. This builds trust.

Payment Options

One of the biggest advantages of eCommerce is the liberty it offers to customers in terms of payment systems. Customers need not pay cash at all times. They could use internet banking, digital wallets, credit or debit cards, vouchers, gift coupons and more options to pay for their purchases. Ensure you incorporate all of these when you get an app developed for your eCommerce business.

The eCommerce App Development Company

The performance of your app and the effectiveness of all the modules and features we discussed earlier boil down to how well your app is developed. That’s why it is crucial to approach the best ecommerce app development cost to get an app developed. When you approach an app development company, you are actually vesting your idea to them to turn it into a profit-generating medium. With such ambitions in mind, you should be not only careful but picky when you decide to collaborate with vendors and app development companies.

To help you get an idea, pay attention to the following factors when you approach an eCommerce mobile app development company:

1. Their expertise and years of operation, where you analyze how many years have they been functional, understand their grasp of technologies and their evolution
2. Their portfolio to understand if they have worked with similar ideas, market segments or companies before and validate if they could pull off such a feat
3. Their team size and the range of tech experts they have in house such as full-stack developers, frontend developers, cross-platform app developers and more
4. Their modus operandi and how their collaboration terms and procedures
5. Check if they deploy software development methodologies like DevOps, agile and more to ensure smooth communication and collaboration
6. Their tech infrastructure and the availability of tech stack to build your product and more

Wrapping Up

eCommerce app development is not easy and it’s not a one-week affair as well. It depends on the clarity of your idea, your vision and the competency of the collaborating app development company. Every team member needs to fall in place to get the best functioning app out in the market.

That’s why we recommend getting in touch with us for all your eCommerce app development needs. We are a premier eCommerce app development company diligently offering state-of-the-art services. We adhere to the factors we just discussed and ensure your abstract idea is turned into an impeccable tangible product.

Reach out to us today.