E-commerce applications use digital platforms to enable communication between consumers and retailers. Given the rapid increase in smartphones, internet and such technological advancements, end consumers can now shop online across the globe, whereas businesses can access a massive user base, improvise with gathered data and develop a profitable haven for themselves by embedding these platforms with social media integration, omnichannel models and newer payment gateways. The field of e-commerce app development is ripe for innovation and is growing fast, as is evident from a report suggesting that the e-commerce software market is forecasted to increase by over $1.2 billion from 2019 to 2025. Let us dig into various aspects of mobile app development for e-commerce to understand how they are built with requisite features, their use cases and benefits, challenges during development and more in this blog.
Global e-commerce app development market size from 2019 to 2025
E-commerce Application Development Process
The following stages and services are involved in mobile app development for e-commerce:
- Conceptualization: It is basically the discovery phase of app development which includes development of minimum viable product vs. prototype, understanding the client’s requirements, business objectives and about the target audience. In this case, the services can be market research, competitor analysis, and brainstorming around intricate design, features and functionalities that the app would showcase. The basic features include user registration, profile management, search and filter, product details, add to cart, buy and track options, notifications, customer support, social media integration and admin panel.
- Designing: The UI/UX of the e-commerce app needs to be user-friendly and visually appealing in nature. Here, the services would include wireframing, prototyping, testing, user feedback and iterative improvisation for an intuitive experience.
- Frontend Development: The design finalized from the above two stages needs to be implemented into a functional frontend interface, in which case, the services would include HTML/CSS coding, integration of design assets and JavaScript development for interactivity.
- Backend Development: As we are aware, the backend is responsible for the logic, server-side operations and database management. So, development of the backend would include services such as API development for communicating between the frontend and the backend, database design and implementation of security measures.
- Payment Gateway: It is crucial to integrate secure payment processing gateways such as PayPal, Stripe or other custom payment solutions etc. into e-commerce apps.
- Product Management: Features such as product listing, categorization, filtering and searching are required to be added in the app. Thus, e-commerce app development services included would be product data management, implementation of product recommendation engine and handling sync with inventory management.
- User Authentication: Services also involve implementation of user authentication mechanisms (email, password, social login etc.) for ensuring data encryption, and protection against security threats like SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS) etc.
- Order Management: Services for implementing features such as adding products to cart, checkout process management, order invoice generation and automatic invoice recognition, and delivery tracking. Here, the services required can be implementation of shopping carts, order tracking and integration of shipping APIs.
- Agnostic Approach: To build an e-commerce mobile app that targets a specific audience as per business requirements, services may be needed to make sure the app is device agnostic in nature that is for developing native or cross-platform Android application development or for iOS devices.
- Testing: Quality assurance services are a necessity to build an optimized e-commerce app that is compatible across various devices and browsers. Through testing, one can identify bugs and fix them. Performance testing is useful to measure the app’s responsiveness and speed optimization.
- Maintenance: The e-commerce mobile app development company app deploys the app to production servers and configures server infrastructure. Furthermore, it provides maintenance and support services such as updates, bug fixes and feature enhancements such as voice search, virtual try-on clothes, code generation for OCR receipt scanners during error-handling, multilingual interface etc.
Use Cases of E-commerce App Development
E-commerce is a very big sector in the digital world; thus, mobile e-commerce app development is a complex process. In order to start with the aforementioned development in a sustainable and profitable manner, it is crucial to select the application type within a range of types such as those given below:
Aggregator Apps
E-commerce aggregator applications allow service providers or manufacturers to seamlessly connect with the end users, therefore, users do not need to visit the website continuously to know about the availability of their products of choice and procurement. These applications represent a digital marketplace that showcases wide range of product and service offerings from different brands and sellers, so that consumers can compare prices, quality, sizes, discounts, etc. in one go under one virtual roof or platform and choose the best option available while saving their valuable time and effort. Few examples of e-commerce aggregator apps include Etsy, eBay, Shopify, Amazon etc. that help e-commerce businesses to scale up, widen their outreach, streamline logistics, gain a competitive edge and provide better customer experience.
B2B Apps
Business-to-Business e-commerce apps are designed to connect two businesses that are operating in similar domains such that their processes of selling products and services between themselves or to each other are streamlined. Certain features imbibed in the sales model of e-commerce app development services include product catalogs, pricing and discount management, user and order management and additional integrations with other businesses. All in all, both businesses can enhance their virtual presence as well as facilitate transactions amongst each other or other businesses with the help of platforms with B2B extensions. Some notable examples of B2B e-commerce apps include Alibaba, Shopify Plus, Boodmo, BigCommerce etc.
B2C Apps
Business-to-Consumer apps are the most common type of e-commerce apps where businesses across industries such as retail, entertainment etc. directly sell their products and services to consumers. Some commonly known examples include Meta, Amazon, Netflix, Flipkart, FirstCry, eBay, Costco, Target, Gumtree, Zara, Taobao, Lazada etc. These apps act as a bridge between companies and end consumers by greatly improving user accessibility as well as captivating and retaining them through loyalty rewards, coupons, cashbacks etc. The visibility of the business and their website increases profoundly, thus leading to better revenue generation.
C2C Apps
Consumer-to-Consumer e-commerce apps have an architecture that facilitates product or service exchange, buying and selling between two or more end customers online. It is especially useful for home-based entrepreneurs, small businesses and individuals as they can trade in their customized products at low operating costs through a transaction handling third party that charges small commission fee. Services to build e-commerce mobile apps offer a more personalized shopping experience to users than traditional e-retailers, for example, Etsy, Facebook, AliExpress, eBay, Amazon Marketplace, Craigslist, Depop, Poshmark, Mesho, OLX, Mercari etc.
Feature enhancement by e-commerce app development services
C2B Apps
Consumer-to-Business mobile app development for e-commerce enables transactions for end users or small business owners to provide their goods, services or information directly to businesses like large corporations or individuals. It is usually built upon a service-focused model as compared to product-based, where businesses can bid on and purchase from so-called customers instead of selling to them. These apps have revolutionized traditional commerce, while customers can also track orders and manage their accounts like other e-commerce apps. Users can provide technical, research-related or other types of expertise, creative content etc. through platforms like freelancing websites and user-generated products or content marketplace. They pro-actively participate in production, distribution of products, services and contribute to business success through facilitated collaboration offered by these apps. A few examples are Fiverr, Upwork, Airbnb, Kickstarter, 99designs, Freelancer, Foundit etc.
Others
There are other e-commerce apps such as auction and bidding apps that allow users to propose suitable pricings in online auctions of products and services. Some features of these apps include product display, auction creation, deadlines and bidding management, as well as automatic alerts for result announcement. Another major use case by custom application development services creating e-commerce apps is ticketing sales and seat reservations, on which customers can effectively book and manage schedules of their trips, events, conferences etc.
Benefits of E-commerce App Development Services
The following are some of the benefits of these services:
- Enhanced User Experience: E-commerce apps enable a personalized consumer experience where via one-time login, they can seamlessly browse through wish lists, shopping carts etc. and purchase products easily on the navigable interface. Users can receive product recommendations, push notifications about their products of interest, and easy one-click payments, thus creating an environment for more purchases.
Personalization plays an important role in driving business sales as they can track user’s purchases, browsing history and offer recommendations, rewards, customized coupons, faster check-out, purchase reminder notifications, loyalty programs, incentives and discounts as per their history, thus increasing customer loyalty, conversion rates, engagement levels and chances of repeat purchases while minimizing shopping cart abandonment rates.
- Faster Performance: With continuous and thorough testing and quality assurance practices, services can assure better performance, quicker actions and lesser loading time as apps can efficiently store use data on the local device. Compared to websites and desktops, native coding, optimized user interface, device features and control access, offline functions and reduced network latency can render faster performance in the case of cost-effective e-commerce mobile apps.
- Easy Maintenance: When businesses choose any custom e-commerce mobile app development company instead of white labeling their product, they can continuously be in touch with the development team for effortlessly improvising design strategy, feature maintenance etc., thus providing complete control over the app.
- Competitive Edge: E-commerce businesses can establish a robust brand identity through mobile apps, ensuring alignment between brand promises and customer experience. These app development services revolutionize customer interactions, enabling businesses to enhance marketing efforts with push notifications for promotions. Integrating chatbots streamlines shopping while collecting valuable data for better customer engagement.
Various benefits of e-commerce app development
Challenges associated with E-commerce App Development
It is necessary to note possible challenges related to these services to avoid or overcome them during implementation and beyond:
- Platform Compatibility: Services that offer mobile app development for ecommerce must build it such that it is compatible across multiple platforms like iOS and Android, with respect to design principles, interface elements (non-scalable or overlapping), textual content (truncation), coding languages, platform-specific designs and patterns (non-fluid layouts), aspect ratios, screen sizes, resolutions, typography, iconography, navigation styles, and frameworks. Developers can utilize cross-platform frameworks such as React Native, Flutter etc. to streamline the development process, reuse codes and flexible grids, fasten time-to-market and provide a familiar experience with responsive layout, better memory management and consistent visual appearance to customers.
- Adaptive Design: The main issues in this case include slow loading time, visual appearance, intuitiveness, and complex checkout process (instructions, form fields, payment gateway) embedded in the interface. User research (preferences, expectations and behavior), iterative feedback (surveys, interviews), wireframe creation, user flows and information architecture (streamlined onboarding, relevance, accessibility, understandability of organized categories), usability testing are of utmost importance to identify user pain points, value proposition in the journey and design refinement to obtain the best balance of aesthetics and features.
- Security Measures: Certain data such as user information and payment credentials are sensitive and thus require implementation of data storage and transmission encryption between app and server such as by cloud migration services (HTTPS – TLS/SSL vs. Man-in-the-Middle attacks), multi-factor authentication (SMS, biometric, facial or fingerprint verification, password policy), compliance with GDPR, CCPA etc. secure payment processing methods, incident response planning, unique session tokens, timeouts, cookie handling, penetration testing, security audits, security protocol, software, framework, library and operating systems updates etc. to be safeguarded against data breaches, potential loopholes, session hijacks, unauthorized access, vulnerabilities and strengthen the app’s security infrastructure.
- Backend Integration: E-commerce mobile app development company should seamlessly integrate the app with backend systems like logistics inventory management (real-time product info, attributes, catalogues, variations, stock levels, availability, pricing), payment gateways, error-handling (network failures, logging, integration troubleshooting) third-party services, order processing systems (order confirmation generation, shipment tracking, return and cancellation handling) and customer relationship management software (app usage, user behavior, performance metrics, KPIs, popular products). This requires adherence to Application Programing Interfaces (API) for data exchange, authentication, caching mechanism (Redis, Memcached), data format understanding, database optimization (indexing frequently accessed data, database sharding, partitioning across servers) and testing for data synchronization and user load handling.
- Scalability: E-commerce should handle increasing concurrent user traffic and transactional spikes. This can be done via peak load and performance testing, asynchronous processing (offloading to image and task queues, event-driven architecture), flexible and globally accessible cloud-based infrastructure (AWS, GCP), auto-scaling or horizontal scaling mechanisms (more resources, servers, instances via load balancers for request distribution among servers), caching strategies (client-side, server-side in-memory caching for frequently accessed data like static content, product info), database optimization (reducing load on single database instance), code bundle size optimization and compression (data structure queries, memory leaks, profiling tools, code reviews, refactoring, code splitting) and analytics (usage, response, errors metrics), app size reduction (low download and upload time), bandwidth usage and network requests (lazy loading) etc. to minimize manual intervention by e-commerce app development services.
Realizing E–commerce App Concepts with KritiKal
Businesses are continuously adapting newer e-commerce platforms and developing high-quality and feature-rich mobile apps to foster customer engagement through exceptional shopping experience and gain a competitive edge in the market. Alongside app development microservices or cloud-based solution providers that allow flexible resource allocation, they can build e-commerce mobile apps and realize their growth strategies while identifying bottlenecks and fine-tuning its performance over the years. This is where KritiKal Solutions, a leading e-commerce mobile app development company comes into the play. It has various experts who are proficiently skilled in front end technologies like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Vue.js, Node.js, Node.js, Angular etc. as well as backend technologies such as C#, Ruby, PHP, Scala, Python, Java, Spring and more. It has helped in conceptualizing, designing and migrating traditional retail practices to e-commerce apps for many SMBs large enterprises, Fortune 500, startups etc. in various industries. Please call us or mail us at sales@kritikalsolutions.com to avail our services.
Akhilesh Chaurasia currently works as a Lead Engineer at KritiKal Solutions. He has over 6 years of experience as a Full Stack Developer with a demonstrated history of working in the computer software industry. He is proficiently skilled in Advance PHP, Node, React.js, Angular 5+, MongoDB, MySQL, and AWS, with which he has helped KritiKal in executing innovative projects involving e-commerce mobile app development to major some clients.