How to develop a mobile e-commerce app

E-commerce is onwards and upwards embracing dozens of potential buyers. Moreover, mobile apps have become a powerful marketing tool that can help the entrepreneurs to grow their business as well as boost the revenue.

On the other hand, development of e-commerce mobile apps involves massive investments of both times as well as money. In order to get money’s worth, you had better consider all the development factors beforehand. That’s why we are going to shed light on how to build an e-commerce app.

Things to pay attention while developing an e-commerce app

To develop a mobile app that can turn shoppers into buyers, you need to understand the basic requirements for an eCommerce software solution.

Security

It’s evident that e-commerce app should bear the highest security levels as they, as a rule, deal with buying operations. Such apps allow buyers spend money on goods or services that a company sells. Thus, security is the most important factor for customers who make purchases online. To develop a popular shopping app, you shouldn’t compromise the security issues.

Ease of use

An e-commerce app shouldn’t have too complicated UI since not every customer is a profound mobile user. Moreover, it’s unlikely that users will spend long hours studying user guides. Try to make the app interface simple and clear. All the crucial elements have to be arranged on the first “home” screen.

Bug-free performance

Flawless performance of a shopping app is a key to its popularity. A mobile app should be stable, and there are no excuses for bugs or going down. The shoppers shouldn’t have the feeling that they are paying for a bad service.

In case you are going to create an e-commerce app for Android or iOS, it’s essential to know well the characteristics of the operating systems you are going to reach. The design of an e-commerce app is equally important. An application should not only work well but also look good.

How to implement payment components

A payment feature is one of the most important issues of an e-commerce app. To allow buyers spend money in the app, you have to integrate a payment system. As a rule, a payment systems consists of a payment processor and gateway. Let’s delve into introducing a payment feature.

A payment gateway is required to connect a buyer to a banking system. Not to mention, the security of payments depends on the gateway. What does a payment gateway do? The gateway transfers the buyer’s information including card number, CVV code, etc. But before sending it, a payment gateway encrypts it to prevent any data theft. 

After a payment gateway processes the information, it goes to the next stop – a payment processor. Critical payment procedures are performed in a payment processor. In other words, a payment processor is a heart of the payment system.

A payment processor is the main component of the payment system. And it’s vital for a payment processor to perform flawlessly. But still, some errors may occur. Henceforth, such components should be tested scrutinously.

E-commerce app types to develop

Here is a short list of e-commerce app types as well as ideas that you can implement while building an e-commerce app. You can use the following ideas for your startup, too.

Instagram for e-commerce

It’s a great idea to develop an app like Instagram for selling apparel or home decor. The customers are used to the “news feed”. So why not to take advantage of a photo news feed to offer goods or even services? The app logic is simple as ABC. Customers touch an image with the product they’d like to buy and add them to the cart.

Auction sales app

If you are going to develop an e-commerce app for stock resellers, have a look at the auction sales model. How does it work? To start sales, you set the minimum price and determine the parameters including minimum and maximum bid, number of participants, etc. Such an app resembles a real-life auction process but to take part in the mobile app bids, you need the Internet.

App finder for goods

Another lucrative idea is to develop an app that will help the customers find the goods on the Internet via a picture. Such apps take advantage of the Google service “Search by Image”. Customers upload a photo of the product they are looking for, and the app helps find it at the online store.

How to develop an e-commerce mobile app

Before developing a mobile app, you should either outsource or hire a development team that could consist of 1-2 mobile developers, 1-2 backend developers, a QA engineer, a project manager, and a designer.

Assuming that you have already found your dream team, you should consider the main features to implement in an e-commerce app.

When it comes to the app development, another important issue to consider is the time required to build an e-commerce app. The price for an app actually depends on the development time.

Generally, the development process of an e-commerce app may require 1200-1400 hours. But the time may be decreased or increased depending on the features, functions, and the complexity. Since every additional feature or function influences the end price, software development process should be well planned to avoid spending more time and money on implementing unnecessary functions.

Summing up

A mobile app development process consists of many development stages.  And it doesn’t stop even when you release the app. Moreover, it’s rather important to go for improving your app to provide the better user experience. You are building an app for people so it’s obvious to adjust it to their needs. That’s why analyzing how people work with your software product is a key to the success of any mobile app.  

Bio

Hi, everyone! I’m Helen Morrice. Thanks for reading my article on how to develop a mobile app for e-commerce. Liked my coverage? Let’s become friends on Facebook or Twitter.