How to choose the best WooCommerce mobile app builder?

Utkarsh
AppMySite
Published in
8 min readNov 11, 2019

You will be surprised to know that more than 25 % of the world online store are powered with the WooCommerce plugin, accounting to almost 75,004,151 downloads so far. Recognised as the most popular ecommerce plug in, WooCommerce makes it easier to create and manage a website.

Alongside, you can get a burst of features to streamline your order management, inventory management, payments, shipping and taxes. Businesses that opt for WooCommerce open themselves to integrating additional plugins and themes that are compatible with WordPress.

Image credits: https://trends.builtwith.com/shop

This blog is dedicated to all the WooCommerce online store owners who are looking for an app builder that can easily turn website into app. Small businesses are most commonly going with app builders because they are affordable and they offer a time-specific solution (ranging from instant app delivery to 1 week).

App My Site is one of the simplest app builder that offers building WooCommerce android and iOS app, created on a native platform to help promote your online business in the most efficient manner. Looks at the features of App My Site’s WooCommerce app builder:

1. App Icon & Splash Screen:

This one tops the list because an app icon and a splash screen are features of your app that will create the first impression of your business when they interact with your app. A splash screen will be the first screen your customers see when they fire up your app and an app icon will become the identity of your brand.

2. User Registration & Sign-in

Every online business store aims at simplifying the shopping journey of a user. This feature of your app will enable your customers sign up on your website through one-step process. In case, your customers are unwilling to sign up, they can even visit your e-commerce app as guests.

3. Social-media Integration

This feature is in line with the previous one, which is to provide effortless shopping experience to your customers. If you opt for App My Site, your customers will be register themselves through Google and Facebook accounts. The information on the customer’s social media accounts will automatically sync with their profiles on your app.

4. Forgot password

You can’t always expect your customers to remember the passwords of all the mobile apps they have downloaded. This feature will come handy when your customers forget their login credentials. The “Forgot Password” feature will enable your customers to generate an OTP (One Time Password) that will be directed on their registered email ID. Additionally, all the payment information and other customer information will always be protected for enhanced security.

5. Automated & Dynamic Dashboard

This is a feature that will extremely beneficial in saving the money that you will otherwise spend in maintaining your app. Your app will be in sync with your website, which means every time you make changes to your WooCommerce website, your dashboard will automatically populate. This is a great way of maintaining the consistency of both your website and app.

6. Automated Menu & Categories

Besides syncing all the products that exist on your website to your mobile app, the app that you develop by signing up with App My Site will also populate all the product categories and menu. Any time you make changes to your website, your app will automatically be updated and reflect the updates.

7. Product Filtering & Sorting

A mandatory feature that every e-commerce website and app should provide is let customers easily filter and sort product as per their requirement. Through your mobile app, you can enable customers to sort products by their name, price, colour, popularity and new arrivals. If you have products from multiple brands, you can allow your customers to view a brand they are looking for.

8. Product Details & Information

To make your products look more credible, your app will display the details of all the products that are on the website, similar to the information on your website. This dynamic feature will display the price, image, size and other additional information that is on your ecommerce website, helping you create a unified shopping experience for the customers.

9. Smart Cart & Checkout

Every customer that registers on your app will be able to add numerous products in the cart. The products your customers add to their add will also be displayed at the time of checkout, where modification to the other can be made.

10. Multiple Payment Gateways

Allow your customers to pay from multiple payment gateways on your app, including PayPal, Credit and Debit Cards, and Net Banking. You can also incorporate the cash on delivery option to make your app look more trustworthy.

11. Order History

To enhance the shopping experience of your customers, you can give your customers access to details of their current and previous orders which includes their order ID, order price, order placement date, payment status, and the delivery status of the orders. All the information will be available on the “My Orders” section. This will be helpful for you to track their orders in case of any discrepancy.

12. Personal customer account

A customer makes extra effort to stay loyal to businesses that provide personalised shopping experience. Keeping this in mind, the apps built through App My Site’s native app for WooCommerce offers a “My Profile” section which enables customers to modify their contact details and addresses. Each time your customer makes changes to their profile, they are instantly reflected on their app.

13. Add CMS Page

If there is an additional CMS page that you would like your mobile app to have, you can use this feature to add it. You can include the pages that describe your business journey or a page that is dedicated to the latest blogs related to your product. Additionally, you can also run free marketing campaigns on your website that are dedicated to new arrivals and promotions.

While comparing options for an app builder, you may find yourself torn between features each of them offer. However, the most important aspect of choosing a mobile app builder should depend on the value of money for the app you are getting.

Let’s compare App My Site with other WooCommerce App Builders:

The biggest difference between the apps provided App My Site and Appmakerz lies in their pricing plan. The annual subscription plan for appmaker is prices at USD 120. However, App My Site, can offer both WooCommerce android and iOS app at USD 90. Other than offering the features that you can get through app maker, you can benefit from these additional set of features:

1. Impressive splash screen and app icon

2. Order history screen

3. My Profile section for the customer

4. Additional CMS page for blogs/marketing campaigns/about us

App Presser

It will be unfair to say that App Presser doesn’t offer a good set of features, considering it is an old player in the market. Having said that, the subscription plan of this app builder is prices at $ 590 annually which is a lot more than what App My Site offers.

Additionally, the app delivered through this platform are web view versions of your website, and not a native app that is amongst the first in the class of app development. The DIY app builder may enable you to create an app within minutes of signing up, but the truth is that if you’re completely unaware of the app development world, it is best let the developers build an app which is extremely professional.

Again, Mobikul is a great solution for people who have a static website and will never need to make any change to their website after it is converted. However, businesses that are dynamic in nature and repeatedly need to make customisation to their website, can face challenges after signing up with this platform.

App My Site powers businesses to customise their apps by changing the colour theme, images and content of their app as and when they want. The pricing for a WooCommerce native app on Mobikul is USD 299 which is three times the price of AMS.

Appypie is definitely a good option for businesses that are looking for a generic solution to build an app. You can simply log onto their website and start creating app by yourself. The only drawback is that the app that you build through this DIY solution are not very professional and are web view versions of your website.

Commonly known as Hybrid apps, these apps are incomparable to the efficiency of native apps. If you are looking for a more reliable, efficient and durable option then its best to with native app development which App My Site offers.

This popular app builder specialises in creating apps for industry specific businesses including schools, colleges, employee management and more. Their initial cost does not cover the maintenance charges for keeping your up to date whenever you make changes to it.

However, when you sign up with App My Site, your cost for the server space, on-going maintenance is all covered within your subscription charges, which is a pretty good deal for small business owners.

Wrapping up

With countless options available in the market, we understand that it can be a fairly challenging task to determine an option that suits your requirement the best.

With App My Site, both small scale businesses and freelance app developers can rely on fully-blown app that can be delivered within 5 days of signing up. Not only is this app builder the most affordable amongst all the options that we listed in this article, but most certainly offers a profusion of great features that all business owners is looking for in their mobile apps.

Get in touch with AppMySite to drop in an enquiry.

Originally published at http://appmywebsite.wordpress.com on November 11, 2019.

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