How to develop an amazing eCommerce app

We’ve said this before, and I reiterate - it has now become imperative for retail businesses to go mobile. And if you haven’t already, there’s no better time to get one for your business today.

But just having a mobile app is not really enough, is it? You would want an app that can quickly scale to different geographies, attract users enough for them to keep wanting to come back, AND give a good RoI.

But there are a lot of parts involved in a mobile app and even more in an eCommerce app. So the rules that apply to other type of apps - games, utility apps, social or media apps - they won’t really work for your eCommerce app. That’s where we come in. Having worked on multiple eCommerce mobile apps in the past 10 years, we have come to identify certain traits that make eCommerce mobile apps more successful.

Here’s 6 key things that differentiate your eCommerce app from others

1. The design

For an eComm app, this is probably one of the most important items to consider. Most of the top eCommerce apps are there because of their design - both in terms of user interface and user experience.

If you browse through some of the best eCommerce apps, you will notice they follow a trend for the overall design - clean interfaces, simple/soothing color palettes, clear fonts, a wonderfully smooth navigation and a nice combination of images, copy and multimedia (only if absolutely necessary). A cluttered UI which tries to cram as many features and details as possible on a single screen drives users away.

2. The user interaction

The next thing you need to take into consideration is making the app more engaging - you want users to keep coming back to your app and not let it be just another icon on their phone. There are some key factors to make your apps more engaging

a. Social logins - user these days hate to type in emails and password. Gone are the days when users had to first register, verify their account and then login - they’d pretty much not use your app rather than follow as many steps to just get in. It is much more convenient to let them just login using one of the social networking accounts they have - Facebook, Twitter, even Pinterest and get in. For those few who prefer to not attach their social network logins with another app, you still have the email login option

b. Share buttons - the best way to keep an app engaging and increase user interaction is to maintain its virality. Make it easy for users to share your products over social networking sites, with friends & family and let them be your evangelists. But - use caution here and don’t let the share button take the user’s attention away from the buying experience.

c. Push notifications - sometimes you need to prod a user to ensure they keep coming back. If a user has signed in for push notifications from your app, they are interested in getting updates about sales, discounts and products they may be interested in - you know you are one step closer to making a sale. Use this to your advantage. Again a word of caution - don’t send too many notifications or the user might just be turned off.

d. Incentives & Gamification - Gamification in apps works. Badges, discounts/promotions for heavy usage, special offers - incentives and gamification drives traffic to your app and keeps the customer happy. Offer your customers loyalty programs, points, vouchers to keep them engaged.

3. The features

If you again look at the apps you identified in step 1, you’ll see that they don’t provide all features that their web versions offer.

Identify the features which absolutely must be in your app - classify the list into three heads - “must haves”, “good to haves” and “not much value-add”. Start your app’s design with the “must haves”. Once they have been fit in, move to the “good to haves” and only include those which add value to the app.

4. The moolah

This is probably one feature that governs how successful your app will be. One reason why many eCommerce apps fail to retain their users is their checkout process is a pain. Simplify the payment process in your app, don’t lock a user in - give them an option to opt out if they want to. Give them various modes of payment to select from. There was a time apps used to rely only on a single mode of payment for checkout. But now with multiple payment gateways available, it is very easy to provide an amazing checkout and payment experience to users.

When selecting a payment gateway, also take into consideration the gateway’s ability to scale as your scale and traffic grows, the markets and currencies supported, fees charged etc.

5. The back office

Apart from the app’s design and front end part of your app, the back office and CMS are equally important. Selecting the right CMS and back office systems can go a long way in your app’s journey as you grow in size.

When selecting a solution, you need to ensure it fits your needs. You might want to consider asking the following questions when selecting them

• Can you customize it as per your needs - not just the CMS but other back office operations as well like accounting, inventory management, finances etc)
• Do you have an experienced team (or can you hire one on short notice) to make these customizations and handle any issues?
• Are your systems and data secure?

Some good frameworks you can use are Magento, Shopify and BigCommerce.

6. The marketing

So your app is ready, you have all the processes up and running - now comes the marketing. With millions of apps out there already, it takes effort to get your app noticed. Once a user is hooked, it is easier to keep them coming back.

Don’t stick to the age-old marketing tricks - try something new.

Here’s some blogs which might interest you - 10 steps to market your mobile apps, Define your digital marketing strategy

We hope with this blog we helped you get over the initial roadblock of getting started. If you have any questions on how to go about with your app’s development, we’d be happy to have a free consultation call.