A Guide to Building an eCommerce App

Have you been thinking about creating your eCommerce app lately? Or building an online platform for your business? Because even if you never felt any requirement for it, the COVID-19 pandemic might have pushed you to consider the online route. This happened with most businesses. As countries went into complete lockdown, retailers were left with no choice but to take their business online.

And it’s a wise move as well. No one knows when the situation will come full circle. The virus is hitting us back at regular intervals. The recent example being India where a steep rise in cases were reported in April and May after a massive dip in the count in the last and first quarter of 2020 and 2021, respectively.

The fear of contracting the virus compelled consumers to avoid visiting brick and mortar stores and purchase online. This resulted in staggering eCommerce growth. Online retail sales went up by a whopping 32.4% in 2020, and even further (39% year over year growth) in the first quarter of 2021. As the shopping habits changed, retailers also shifted their focus towards building an online presence.

If you are also looking to have an eCommerce app for your business, now is the time. Even if you don’t run any but want to start with an eCommerce store like an online grocery shop, this is the perfect time to take the initiative.

Reach out to a good eCommerce app development company and tell them about how you wish to expand your business digitally or what all you want in your app. We, at Dew, have built some successful eCommerce applications apps and we cater to various other niches, ranging from Travel to Healthcare. Our proficient team knows what goes into developing apps that are truly mind-blowing.

If you are still doubtful of having an eCommerce app, we will try to change your mindset by the end of this article where we will discuss why you should have an eCommerce app, what features you should integrate into it and how to build one.

Why Should You Build an eCommerce App?

There might be endless thoughts running through your mind as to why you should invest in eCommerce app development. Here are a few reasons-

1. People Enjoy Shopping Online

Online shopping gives users the comfort of purchasing a product at their convenience. It’s a matter of a few taps on their smartphones and they get the product delivered right at their doorstep.

2. People Love Apps Especially Millennials

Most of the eCommerce transactions take place through mobile apps. Whether it is about online shopping or grocery purchase, preference is always given to apps. So, there remains no question as to why you shouldn’t go for an eCommerce app.

3. Help Businesses Perform Better

By having an eCommerce app, businesses can communicate more effectively with the target audience and market their offerings in a much better way. Also with various analytics tools available, they can learn how to enhance their business.

4. Useful Customer Insights

An eCommerce app allows you to gather useful insights about your customers such as their buying behavior, purchase preferences, and more, which can be leveraged to send more personalized offers.

How to Develop an eCommerce App?

The process of building an eCommerce app covers various significant stages. Here’s a detailed guide on how to develop an eCommerce app that results in more visitors, more sales, and recurring customers.

1. Identify Your Niche

The first and foremost step is to pick a niche. It can be related to fashion, grocery, etc. Unlike in the case where you want an eCommerce app for your business and the niche is already decided, you will have to identify your niche if you are just starting out in an eCommerce business. Figure out your focused or specialized area of the industry you want to serve.

2. Figure Out The Objectives

You must know the reasons why you are building an eCommerce mobile app. What are the goals behind it? What do you want to achieve through the app that you cannot with a physical store? The path to creating an app becomes much easier when the objectives are pre-defined.

3. Market Research and Analysis

Once the objectives are defined, start with your research. Identify your target audience and try to obtain as much information as you can about them, such as their average age, interests, etc. Figure out how your app can benefit those target users. Track your competitors and assess the reasons behind their popularity among consumers. Perform a SWOT analysis of their business, catch the key findings and prepare a plan on how you can outperform them. Having an idea of the ideal users streamlines your development process.

4. Select The Right Technology Stack

The next step to developing an eCommerce app is choosing the right technology stack. Depending on the type of app you want to build, the tech stack would vary. For example, you can go for a native eCommerce app or have a progressive web app or PWA. Both have a different tech stack. While native apps are built for specific platforms such as Android or iOS using their dedicated toolset, PWAs, on the other hand, are web apps in the form of native apps that require a different toolset.

Related: Native vs PWA

5. Design and Development

After all the research and analysis, now starts the main work of your eCommerce app development project. It starts with planning out the features you require and then preparing an information architecture accordingly. This is done to ensure smooth navigation throughout the application by structuring the content in a sustainable way. The IA of your eCommerce app is followed by Wireframes and Prototypes. The design team initially forms a basic static layout that demonstrates what elements would exist on the different pages of your app, which we call wireframe, and then builds a prototype of the same but is clickable and visually strong. It indicates how the users would interact with the app elements in a real way.

The development process begins as soon as the design is ready. Developers start with the coding work and ensure that the intended functionality is achieved.

6. Test Your eCommerce App

Post eCommerce app development, it’s imperative that you test your app thoroughly. Apps are bound to catch bugs during the development phase so ensure that they are fixed or eliminated before making your app available to the public.

QA engineers at Dew take extreme care of this segment. Our testers perform different levels of testing to ensure that the app is bug-free and there are no issues whatsoever in the overall app functionality.

Features to Include in Your eCommerce App

An eCommerce app must have the following key features to keep the users hooked to your application-

1. Easy Checkout

Consumers should be able to checkout easily. Don’t make them stay for too long on the checkout page or else it may result in conversion failure.

2. Wishlist

Allow consumers to add their favorite products to the wishlist so that they can purchase them later without having to browse through the products again.

3. Multiple Payment Options

Don’t just settle for limited payment options. Allow consumers to pay through various payment modes including digital wallets, net banking, and credit/debit cards.

4. Ratings and Reviews

An eCommerce app cannot exist without ratings and reviews. They define its success, so it is essential to have these options. Let customers rate your product and leave a review. It would ease the buying decision of future customers.

5. Push Notifications

Reach out to the app users with new offers, updates, or information and compel them to return to your app.

6. Easy Search

Incorporate a search bar that is easy to locate and allows users to search through categories and subcategories comfortably. Considering how friendly users have become with voice assistants Alexa and Siri, you can also add the voice search functionality.

7. Customer Support

The possibility of customers returning to your app highly depends on how well their queries have been addressed. Allow users to connect to the customer service easily by offering them various options such as live chat support, phone support, and obviously email.

The features you integrate will directly impact your app development cost. So, map out the features wisely.

Final Word

Now that you know how to make an eCommerce app, you can start preparing for it right away. Having an eCommerce mobile app paves the way for more customers and more sales, and also allows you to offer a remarkable customer experience. For any eCommerce app development-related queries, contact us here.

Your competitors are already there enticing your target audience, it’s time to turn the tables.