E-Commerce Category

Call them Fashionista or Shopaholic or whatever! People love to shop on the go! Irrespective of the time and place! At the very comfort of their homes or during the office breaks or while traveling back to their home from office! And that’s why eCommerce apps have been one of their favorites. Amazon, Flipkart, Shopify, eBay, Walmart, Groupon, Aliexpress, just name them! They have already created their success stories.

ECommerce solutions have literally been the game-changer for both, customers as well as business owners. It’s no surprise that businesses are increasingly investing in eCommerce app development. But the question is how to go about it?

In this blog, we have outlined essential steps needed to architect an alluring eCommerce app. Read along for detailed information.

Before understanding the steps to build eCommerce apps, business owners must conduct extensive market research on multiple factors that are mentioned below. Market research will help you to set better business goals, lower business risks, boost customer satisfaction, improve decision-making, outsell competitors, and ultimately make more sales.

Now, let us have a look at the crucial steps that must be followed to create an impeccable app.

The first step in this process is to decide the idea and the goals for the app. What do you want your eCommerce app to look like, what should be the overall concept of the app? How will you measure the progress of the app? What are your KPIs? Do you first want to develop a Minimum Viable Product? Using a Business Model Canvas (BMC) can help you understand some important aspects like value prepositions, revenue, customer segments, etc. So having a well-thought-out idea in place is very important to avoid unnecessary expenses later.

Answers to such questions will help you to streamline your development process, shape your eCommerce app correctly and even improve the app marketing.

Also, studying the buyer persona is essential to knowing your ideal customers. It includes the needs and preferences of the potential customers, their motivations, and similar data which will influence every factor in the eCommerce mobile app development journey.

List out your competitors and do a thorough analysis. Look at their products and services and see what attracts the buyers. Study their business model. However, don’t duplicate their features, business models, etc. Competitor analysis will help you to enhance your research, navigate different challenges in the market, improve your products and services and stand out amongst them, giving a competitive advantage.

The next step for an eCommerce app development company is to determine the feature requirement of your app. A few of the must-have features that you should include in your app are:

To determine the process and the budget, ask yourself the following questions:

Once you decide on the above questions, there are different pricing models available to choose from. They are scope-based, time-based, fixed-price models, or you can opt for dedicated resource hiring.

After conducting thorough research on the aforementioned points, you can now start the design and development of your dream eCommerce app.

Follow these tips for a good end result and unparalleled experiences for the users:

Marketing the eCommerce app is equally important as it is to develop it. After all, getting more downloads, views, purchases is the final aim of the app development process. One can create buzz about the app even before its release. Some of the strategies used for successful app marketing are content marketing, SEO optimization, social media marketing, email marketing, paid advertisement, app marketing, etc.

Finally, you are all set to publish your eCommerce app on different mobile app stores like AppStore and Play Store. You can visit the app stores and sign up on their accounts, pay their registration fees, write the description and privacy policy for the app, upload the screenshots of the app interface, upload the app, specify the pricing of the app and your app will be published after it meets the set standards.

Architecting a fully functional eCommerce app out of an idea is quite challenging. It requires considerable planning, time, efforts, finances, and most important of all, commitment. In the complete development journey, greater focus must be given to the target audience. Along with the incorporation of interesting features, optimal design, exhaustive testing, powerful marketing, etc. are the factors that can lead to a roaring success. So, for creating profitable eCommerce solutions, it’s advisable to partner with an experienced and competent eCommerce app development company like Biz4Solutions. Our proficient eCommerce app developers have created success stories for global clients.

Have you ever wondered why your eCommerce Store is not fetching you the desired success, despite maintaining an outstanding website for attracting online buyers? The answer is simple! The market is fast progressing and adapting to novel approaches for gaining a competitive edge over peers.

Websites are a thing of the past as mobile apps have taken over! Modern-era consumers are glued to their mobile screens and prefer a mobile app for obtaining any service or product they desire. As such, today, most successful entrepreneurs boast of possessing a dedicated eCommerce mobile app for their business.

Mobile apps open up endless possibilities and elevate your business to unprecedented heights of success. This post explores the myriad goodies of mobile eCommerce apps and discusses the reasons why every eCommerce store needs a mobile app, even if they already have a responsive website.

Mobile apps can conduct certain functions during offline mode and hence, do not require constant internet connectivity. This functionality of mobile apps facilitates the speedier loading of animations as well as high-resolution images, leading to the creation of a captivating design and a rich UX.

Every time users log into websites, the browser prompts them to sign in to their account for continuing their shopping activity. And, this is the case even with a responsive website. Mobile apps, on the other hand, store the users’ particulars during their first sign-in. So, the users have to sign in only once – at the time of downloading the application- without the need for signing in every time they shop. This results in enhanced user satisfaction.

Owing to its simple layout, a mobile app speeds up the checkout process and enables eCommerce companies to provide consumers the option of single-click ordering.

Unlike websites, mobile apps can leverage the native features of the users’ smartphones like cameras, microphones, and GPS, for providing them an improved UX. For instance, GPS automatically identifies and geotags the users’ current location, the device microphone allows users to verbalize their search process, and the device’s camera enables consumers to click pictures of the purchased items and showcase these on social media platforms. Furthermore, an interactive shopping experience enabled by AR and VR is available for mobile apps only.

Using mobile apps, users can easily switch between various tabs resulting in smooth and easy-going navigation that is not possible using websites.

The responsiveness of an eCommerce website/app plays a crucial role in its success. This is because modern customers have a relatively lower attention span and abandon the web or mobile apps if it loads too slowly. And, mobile apps enjoy a significant advantage over websites regarding responsiveness and the speed of content loading. Here are the reasons!

Mobile apps can perform certain basic functions like comparing a product’s features, verifying prices, etc. during the offline mode and can store a certain amount of their data on the users’ smartphone devices. Websites, contrarily, cannot function during the offline mode and require a stable uninterrupted network connection for content updates.

Therefore, the amount of data transmitted between a mobile app and a server is ten times lesser than the data transferred between a web browser and a server. As a result, mobile apps receive data much faster as compared to websites and hence, take lesser time to respond. For this reason, mobile apps are more responsive than websites and promise speedier content loading.

A mobile eCommerce application allows users to activate app filters and set their preferences while they are searching for a specific product or service so that the app displays only the types of products/services they are looking for. Moreover, the users can shortlist the desired products and save them in the form of a wishlist. This feature saves the users’ time and effort as they do not have to search for the product all over again during their next online store visit.

Mobile app users can select from various payment options/methodologies and can even add a card of their choice for speeding up transactions.

Besides, business brands use mobile apps to notify their customers about lucrative deals, special discounts, or information about when a particular item in the users’ wish list comes back in stock.

A mobile application allows brands to offer an integrated omnichannel experience to consumers by:

eCommerce apps enable business owners to provide extraordinary services to their consumers in the following ways:

Users can hardly recall URLs of websites, but always remember their favorite mobile apps as apps allow them the convenience to access all products/services offered by a brand with a few clicks. Therefore, it is a crucial tool for building customer loyalty.

The commonest strategy to create customer loyalty using mobile apps is running an in-app loyalty program for existing customers by providing them with special discounted offers, reward points, etc. Users can be offered:

It has been observed that a majority of eCommerce businesses suffer due to cart abandonment rates and this rate is higher for eCommerce websites.

Key reasons for cart abandonment are:

However, mobile apps successfully address all these issues by providing customized settings, effortless navigation, faster loading of pages, and reduced friction while checking out. Moreover, due to the practice of saving consumers’ preferences within the app settings after their first purchase, customers do not have to manually enter details like their names, shipping address, billing information, etc. during their future purchases. Furthermore, consumers can choose from multiple secure payment gateways like Google Pay, Paypal, Apple Pay, etc. and the entire process of buying products is executed with the help of a few clicks. Some apps even provide the facility of making a purchase by simply scanning the users’ fingerprints.

Mobile analytics can be utilized to track and monitor the users’ interaction with your app. Moreover, mobile apps can be integrated with cutting-edge technologies such as Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, and Virtual Reality. These practices help entrepreneurs gather valuable data on user behavior and their purchasing patterns like as given below:

Once the brand owners get the answers to the aforesaid questions, they can adopt profitable strategies for accelerating sales – creating customized content for users, implementing improvements and updates based on user feedback, and building more effective promotional/marketing campaigns.

Needless to say, mobile apps are more flexible and consumer-friendly as compared to websites. So, despite the fact that implementing apps involve a huge cost; they guarantee a handsome ROI. The reason is a mobile app with the relevant concept and the right set of features attracts more consumers, resulting in increased sales, and hence, a greater amount of revenue is generated. Besides, push notifications allow brands to deliver the necessary information to consumers, thereby encouraging them to make instant purchases.

Thus, to sum up, a mobile app is an essential tool for the growth and success of any eCommerce business. eCommerce mobile applications help a business brand to make its online presence felt, generate a positive brand image, provide incredible services, and maximize sales.

If you are looking for an experienced and proficient eCommerce app development company or services , reach out to Biz4Solutions, an offshore mobile app development company in India and U.S.A. We have 10+years of experience in delivering top-quality eCommerce solutions for global clients.