Official WooCommerce Mobile App Review
Update: 2019 Jan, it’s now available for the public to download from play store. Read Official announcement here- https://woocommerce.com/posts/try-the-new-woocommerce-mobile-app-for-key-metrics-order-look-up-and-notifications-cha-ching/
You must be aware of the newly launched Official Woocommerce android app[ Still in Beta ] and at Appmaker, we decided to take a closer look.
The Official Android app which was in beta since July has not made a public version launch yet. As per the woocommercehalo, where Store owners can use for beta test and submit feedback, the app is undergoing more feature update to launch with a Bang! (By far, Official release dates have not been updated yet).
Having a mobile app is need of the hour and as we deal with many WooCommerce sites on day to day basis, they mainly rely on Email or Website Admin dashboard( Yeah, It’s a task) to know of order and shipping details.
We have been recommending Woocommerce Telegram bot to our customers, which we built internally using Woocommerce API(Yes, We built useful things). Since this blog is not about Telegram bot, those interested can take a look at Realtime Woocommerce telegram bot in action and request invite here[ Yes, It’s invite only at present].
And it’s finally a good news to many E-commerce store owners out there, after 533 votes on “How we can Improve Woocommerce”, the wait is finally[almost] over.
We decided to connect our Demo store to Official WooCommerce Android app and decided to write this blog detailing our experience as Native Mobile appmakers.
Requirements
For the app to be perfectly working with your Woocommerce store, you need following versions:
- WooCommerce 3.0+
- The latest version of Jetpack (6.3.2)
Login/Sign Up
The first screen is pretty straightforward with logos of cart, order and bell icon notification. Pretty much summarised what app could be used for. But many in WooCommerce community have criticized the writing “This app requires Jetpack to be able to connect to your Woocommerce store.” is RIP for Woocommerce.
We seem to be okay with it, the jetpack is a lifesaver for many of stores out there and can’t seem to blame woocommerce for its benefit. [ Let me know your thoughts on this ]
Actual login screen. Here you have an option to enter Email address of Wordpress.com account that has connected Woocommerce store( Jetpack is compulsory in order to get past this step). This will also send in magic URL to mail account and it’s just one click from there.
Other options are as follows-
- Log in with Google( straightforward)
- Log in by entering the site address, username and password.
I had trouble logging in since I haven’t installed Jetpack plugin. After installing Jetpack from Woocommerce Admin. The app was set. I used Login with Google option since it was easier for me.
Later it showed connected store as in format Name and Url. Clicked continue to direct to mobile dashboard.
The dashboard was super minimalistic. No navigation bar, the navigation was just 3 items in the bottom of the screen.
- My store
- Orders
- Notifications
The My Store yields orders Daily, Weekly, Monthly and Yearly format. The screen showed number of orders as well as revenue generated from it.
If we have Orders pending, the small tab opens up saying “You have X orders to fulfill” and shows the orders, it’s status( Pending Payment, Processing, etc..)
The screen also showed the Top performers/ Top sellers of that particular tenure, again, Daily, Weekly, Monthly and Yearly.
In the Orders screen, we can see orders.
They can also be filtered (“All”, “Pending Payment”, “Processing”, “On-Hold”, “Completed”, ”Cancelled”, ”Refunded” and “Failed”)
Clicking on these orders will give in more details of that particular order ID.
It shows the Date, Products, Shipping details, and Payment amounts. One additional thing which we found interesting was adding Order Notes( also tick option whether to sent to the customer or keep as private).
The last option is for Notification. This according to screenshots in Playstore is for realtime customer reviews on items being sold.
How Native is Woocommerce Android App?
We should say, the app is smooth and feels natural. The decision was wise at Woocommerce Mobile app development team to go ahead with Native rather than webview or ionic. This indeed is the reason we recommend Woocommerce native app to our customers.
What’s the future for Woocommerce Android App?
We are eagerly waiting for updates that are being rolled out and hope to try them out. The app is simple at this stage and would recommend everyone to try them out. This is going to be a game changer as earlier users depended on third-party apps such as Storepep, WooView, Woocommerce Mobile assistant, etc.
We at Appmaker had recommended our customers Realtime Woocommerce Telegram bot for order updates(yes, we built them). Once the stable version is released, we would be guiding our users to opt for the Official app.
The Feedback at this stage would immensely help them improve before the public launch.
Felix Josemon is leading Growth & Product at Appmaker, where they help E-commerce businesses grow through m-commerce. Appmaker has over 400+ clients across globe and has recently published an E-book to help any E-commerce store owner to Master M-commerce game. Get it for Free here
