Online shoppers make purchases via mobile devices more than ever before. According to Statista, 49.2 percent of e-commerce sales were made through mobile devices in 2020, while m-commerce is predicted to reach 54 percent of digital sales worldwide by 2021.
Want to create your own shopping app? Great! In fact, now is the best time to build an app for your e-commerce business. The question is how to create a shopping app? How much will it cost? What features should you consider for an MVP?
Scroll down and find all your shopping app questions asked and answered in this post. Ready?
Why Does Your Business Need an E-Commerce App?
More and more customers are searching and buying products using shopping apps, without even visiting a website. Why? You guessed it — consumers love mobile apps because purchasing products via mobile applications is easier, faster and more convenient than via desktop applications.
Whether it’s by the pool, on the beach, at a picnic or on the bus, consumers can buy their favorite products with one click.
As the demand for shopping applications is increasing at an incredible rate, it’s high time to build an app for your e-commerce business. A shopping app will bring you:
- increased sales
- increased revenues
- loyal customers
- increased customer retention
- brand recognition, etc.
Now you know why your e-commerce business needs a mobile app. So, what are you waiting for? Keep on scrolling to learn more. We hope our tips will help you bring your app idea into reality.
How to Create a Shopping App?
Have a great idea, but don’t know how to start? No worries! Here is a step-by-step guide on how to build a shopping app!
Step 1: Conduct Market Research
Who is your app for?
What do potential customers want? What are their needs and desires?
Who do your competitors offer?
What problems can you solve with your shopping app?
How is your app going to stand out?
Yep, your first step should always be finding an answer to these questions. In other words, you need to conduct market research. Researching your market thoroughly before developing the app can help you avoid making serious mistakes. So, identify your goals, know your market, user demands, and move forward!
Step 2: Decide Your Tech Stack
At this stage, you are going to decide the technologies you will use to build an MVP for your application and choose the appropriate platform.
You can choose the best platforms by researching your market and finding out which devices are popular among your target audience (and in the geographical areas you are going to launch the app in). For example, iOS devices are more popular in North America and Europe, while Android is more popular in other parts of the world.
Just keep in mind that if you choose to develop an app for only one of those OS’s, you will lose a significant part of your audience and potential users. On the flip side, making separate applications for your business on iOS and Android can be time-consuming. Thus building a cross-platform app is an excellent alternative to native mobile applications. It’s faster, cheaper and simpler. In other words, you are killing two birds with a stone!
Step 3: Find the Right App Development Company
Without a doubt, a developer is one of the most important players in the process of building your shopping app. That is why it’s crucially important to find the right software development team to create an app for your business.
So, there are several factors that you need to consider before choosing an app development company. Always do research: ask about their experience, check their portfolio, find out what type of apps they have worked on in the past, what programming tools they use, find out what previous clients say about them, how much time the development will take, and how much it’s going to cost to build the app. Once you have answers to these questions, make a final decision.
Step 4: Release the App to Users
So, you’ve developed and tested your shopping app. Finally, it’s time to launch the app on the App Store and/or Google Play. And yes (in case you are wondering), the application must meet certain requirements of App Store and Google Play before users can download it.
Step 5: Promote Your App
You made an awesome app. Cool! But how are you going to attract mobile device users and get them to download your shopping app? Well, ‘mobile app marketing’ is the answer! With the right marketing strategy you can reach out to more smartphone users, and encourage them to download it. So, if you don’t want to be left behind your competitors, don’t underestimate the importance of mobile app marketing! Side note: Marketing should be considered from the very beginning, and not after the product is ready!
Step 6: Maintain Your Shopping App
Congratulations! Your app is already on the app store. Shoppers have downloaded and liked it. But if you don’t want to lose users, you have to continually work on fixing bugs, making improvements based on user feedback, and add new features over time.
How Much Would it Cost to Build a Shopping App?
So, you already know how to make an online shopping app…but how much will it cost? Well, it goes without saying that the final cost of your app development depends on many factors, like the app functionalities, design, the level of complexity, supported platforms, the developer experience, etc.
On average, the total cost of a shopping app development ranges between $50,000 and $250,000. The approximate cost will be around $50,000 per platform (iOS or Android).
Shopping Application Features
There are several features that can’t be missed during the development of your e-commerce app. Let’s check those features in detail!
#1: User Registration
People understandably hate to register (well, we all do). Here is an idea: streamline the process of logging into your app as much as possible. Simplify registration forms, plus let customers sign up through social networks, a phone number, email…And most importantly, don’t force customers to register. However, if you really want people to become a registered user, just highlight the benefits of getting registered (for example, offer bonuses and discounts).
#2: Product Catalog
Obviously, you cannot create a shopping app without a product catalog. Buyers can check the details of a particular product (features, descriptions, price, weight, availability, color, customer reviews, and more) in one click. One final word of advice: do your best to present the product catalog in the most organized and visually-appealing way!
#3: Shopping Cart
Add this must-have feature to let customers select and add the products they are interested in buying into their shopping carts. There, customers can view the list of products they’ve chosen, add or remove products from it, etc. After adding products to the cart, buyers can finalize their purchase.
#4: Filters and Search Options
All successful e-commerce mobile applications have this feature. To make it fast and easier for shoppers to find their favorite items, your app must offer advanced search options along with filters. Otherwise, how are they going to find what they want among thousands of products listed across hundreds of categories?
It’s also a good idea to add spelling corrections, search autocomplete, root word recognition and auto suggestions to speed up the process.
#5: Shipping System
Adding a shipping system on your app is one of the most important steps you can take to grow your business online.
Thankfully, there are a lot of shipping APIs you can integrate in your app to offer customers fast and low-cost shipping.
#6: Feedback System
Let users rate items and provide feedback about your services and products. Without a doubt, positive reviews encourage more downloads. On the flip side, negative reviews will give you a chance to improve your services.
#7: Payment Gateway
Thanks to a reliable and safe payment gateway, customers can pay for their order quickly and securely. Don’t forget to offer as many payment methods as possible: credit cards, PayPal, Stripe, Braintree, Android Pay, Apple Pay, etc.
#8: Push Notifications
Notify your customers about new products, special offers, as well as remind them about items left in a cart with push notifications.
Warning: don’t annoy users with too many push notifications, otherwise they will simply start uninstalling your app. Notify customers only about important promotions, discounts, etc.
#9: System of Recommendations
The machine learning algorithms recommend goods based on user preferences and behavior data. Cool, right?
#10: Customer Support
It’s highly recommended to have a comprehensive FAQ, contact details (email, phone number, social media page), and a support staff ready to assist users 24/7 in case they have any questions about products, shipping, or payments. You can also cut expenses on customer support staff by creating a specialized chatbot.
