Why Ecommerce has been making more waves than ever before is no secret. The Coronavirus Threat has been necessitating Lockdowns, and Social Distancing, rendering access and visits to brick and mortar stores almost impossible. In such a situation, Ecommerce has been receiving more attention, and precedence, than ever. In fact, it has even been termed the vaccine for the Economy Slowdown.

In the above-mentioned circumstances, making an Ecommerce App can be very much in order for every business, irrespective of size. Ecommerce seems to be the only way Commerce can continue, and flourish, when people are advised to avoid stepping out of their houses.

The point is, the Ecommerce App Market is busy, and teeming with very tough competition. If you want to come up with an Ecommerce App, it would be better to get it right the very first time, and gain the optimum results.

For an online store to gain and retain customers, the Customer Experience on offer has to be the best, if not better than ‘the best’.

A seamless mobile experience is looked upon as one of the most vital touchpoints in the world that is today. Reports have it that more than 60% of all traffic is mobile traffic. We are also informed that 80% of shoppers take a look at the mobile site of a store, too.

One of the major reasons why you need to develop an Ecommerce App that can be the cause of more

• Recurring Customers
• Visitors

Here are the things you can do to make sure you cannot go wrong with the development of your Ecommerce App.

Be Sure Of The Goals Of Your Ecommerce App

It would be a definite necessity to ascertain what your Ecommerce App is intended to achieve, before it comes around to getting developed. You would also need to know for sure how you would determine the measure of your success. The development process, the features, would all be in accordance with your goals, and Key Performance Indicators.

How do you determine your goals?

Determine your current position.

• How much traffic is your store generating in a month?
• How much of the traffic generated is mobile traffic?
• What is the mobile conversion rate that you have?

Are you losing online business to friction, at present? An Ecommerce App can

• Optimize your checkout process
• Maximize conversions at every ‘funnel’ stage

thus helping you to reach a better position.

If you happen to be a B2B Ecommerce store, and you want to augment your mobile loyalty, and have a greater number of returning customers, your feature requirements will have to be prioritized on the basis of gaining more loyalty. In such a case, the key features you would require would be

• Segmented Push Notifications
• Easy re-ordering

and so on.

Once you know for sure what exactly it is that you want to achieve with your Ecommerce App, decide on what your KPIs are going to be, and the ways you would collect data on them.

Knowing these answers are crucial to the success of your Ecommerce App.

Be Sure Of Whom You Are Creating Your Ecommerce App For

Know for certain who your target audience is. B2B, and B2C customers might require different experiences. If you are sure about who your target audience is, it can streamline the process of developing the Ecommerce App, and your App Marketing can proceed better, too.

To know for certain who you want your target audience to be, ask the following questions to yourself:

• What is the average age-group of my target audience?
• Which products do they have access to?
• Which products do they want to have?
• What are the things they take an interest in?
• What can be the ways of reaching out to them?

Once you get answers to these questions, you can shape the development of your Ecommerce App, in conjunction with your Niche Expertise.

Select The App Type You Want To Proceed With

A very crucial decision would be regarding the type of app that you want to come up with –

• Progressive Web App

or

• Native App.

Let us know more about Progressive Web Apps, and Native Apps.

Progressive Web Apps are known as next gen websites presenting the same

• Performance
• Speed
• Interactivity

as a Native App, minus the download in the App Store. They work across all platforms, too.

If you want to work on a limited budget, or if your brand website has a lot of mobile traffic, PWAs can be a good choice for you.

Native Apps need to be downloaded from an App Store, to be stored in the phone of the user. They also need to be developed, on an individual basis, for Android, and iOS. For this reason, Native Apps can completely utilize each and every feature that a mobile phone can harbor. Native Apps can present the ultimate optimized experience. Native Apps are

• Intuitive
• Fast
• With access to Contacts / Database / Photo Gallery
• Responsive to gestures such as taps

The fact that Native Apps need to get downloaded from the App Store can be looked upon as an opportunity. If your app can get optimized the way that it can get discovered with ease, you can have a good number of visitors because of it.

List The Must-Haves For Your Application

It is time to brainstorm requirements, now. What should be the must-haves for your Ecommerce App? Here are a few ideas that you can consider:

• Social Media Integration
• Multiple Payment Options
• Push Messages
• Rating / Review System
• Native Experiences
• Custom Branding
• Back End Synchronization
• Wishlist
• Easy Checkouts

Decide Upon Your Budget and Process

Once you know for sure what features you want your Ecommerce App to have, you can decide upon the budget with greater certainty.

You need to make up your mind about the

• Money
• Time
• Resources

that you plan to make an investment of.

You also need to take a decision regarding how much flexibility you prefer to have while

• Making changes in your design
• Sending Push Messages
• Adding fresh features

etcetera.

Depending upon the flexibility and budget that you decide upon, you can choose between developing a bespoke app, or go for a SAAS solution that is off the shelf.

Bespoke App – In case of this process, you have a brand-new application developed, by hiring a Development Team. Big brands such as Amazon go for bespoke apps. There are two main reasons for this:

• You can be very specific regarding your requirements in the case of a bespoke app
• Big brands can require integrations that are extremely complex

Bespoke apps can meet such demands, therefore they can be the ideal choice when money is not a thing to worry about. However, bespoke apps are not only expensive to develop, but can also prove expensive in terms of maintenance. It can be a good idea to have developers on call, or on staff, permanently, if you decide to go for bespoke apps.

SAAS Solution – Medium to small size stores go for this option, though it can suit big stores well enough, too, with a few custom adjustments.

You can easily launch an Ecommerce App in just a few weeks with the help of SAAS Technology. One smart plugin can convert your web store into a Native App, or a PWA. SAAS does not enable you to pick up any integration or feature that you want to have; you can only have those features which are available. However, SAAS solutions mostly have all those features on offer that web stores find necessary in order to be successful on mobile.

Decide upon How You would Want to Market Your Ecommerce App

Marketing an Ecommerce App right is just as important as creating it right.

An Ecommerce App needs

• To get downloads
• Purchases
• Product views

in order to be useful.

Take the right decision regarding your Ecommerce App right at the outset, and you can be certain of having a winner at hand.

We are here, in case you want to have a friendly – and, of course, free – consultation regarding Ecommerce Apps; to know more about them, clear doubts, or have some vital questions answered.

We are also here for you, in case you want customized solutions related to Ecommerce System Development.