Build An E-commerce Store App like Souq.com

Build an e-commerce app like Souq to become the first trillionaire of the world with an investment of $50k! Create your e-commerce store app like Souq with a listing of 60k+ products and take your business to new heights!

Image Source: Dribble By Didi Kurniawan

Become the World’s first trillionaire in 2022 with these 3 steps!

With the projection of global e-commerce market share turning to be $27.15 trillion by 2027, organizations from all across the world are gearing up to get an entry ticket to the multi-trillion market.

Are you also dreaming to become a dominant leader in the field of e-commerce? If yes, then it’s time to get inspired by the outstanding platform of the Middle-East marketplace- SOUQ.COM.

Yes, Souq.com!

Here are some surprising Statistics of Souq.com:

• The global net sales in 2020 of $167 million in UAE.
• Total visitings on the platform- 12.54 million.
• 91.11$ organic traffic on the site.
• The global ranking of the platform is #749.

With all these statistics, it is clear that Souq.com is governing the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Egypt by offering more than 600,000 products at highly competitive prices. It is powered by Amazon.Inc was started with the web app in 2005 and launched its native mobile apps for iOS and Android in 2013.

With amazing product listings under 20+ categories, Souq has leveraged the fastest-growing consumer market and high internet penetration. With the availability of such features as multiple payment gateways, huge discounts, easy profile creating, EMI option and more, Souq.com has become one of the largest e-commerce apps in the Arab countries.

Sounds promising!

So before you hire mobile app developer in Dubai to build an e-commerce app like Souq following its app clone, it is important to know that it is a multi-vendor marketplace that takes a lot of effort and budget even if you are following its app clone.

But don’t get stressed up!

I’ll tell you how to develop an app like Souq in 3 simple steps!

With the help of our blog, you will learn :

• Choosing a Platform
  — Building an app for iOS, Android or Both
• Significant Things to Build a Success App
  — Features that help you create an app in minutes without coding
• Publishing the app on the app store
  — Making shopping easier with an eCommerce app

Let’s dig deep into each point for better understanding:

Step 1: Choosing a Platform to Launch Your App

To whom you want to target your app is the biggest question? And talking about the market, among multiple operating systems, the majority of smartphone users are divided into two major platforms: iOS and Android.

Mobile applications to launch on these platforms required different technologies and methodologies. Android mobile app development is cheaper than iOS app development but it needs to undergo rigorous testing procedures.

But while following an app clone of Souq, remember it has mobile(Android & iOS) and web presence as like Amazon e-commerce shopping app. So let’s understand the circumstance related to the choice of platform.

From the user’s point of view…

Based on the market survey iOS devices are more popular in North America and Europe, while other parts of the world prefer Android.

So the standard practice is to make an e-commerce app for iOS first and then migrate it to Android as iOS users are willing to pay more than Android users.

From the developer’s point of view…

Developing an iOS app is far more convenient as it takes less time to launch because you only have to optimize the two latest versions of Apple devices and OS. On the other hand, with Android, you need to optimize for a greater variety of devices and screen resolutions that delay your development time.

The easy way out is to hire a cross-platform app development company that ensures faster development and allows you to create a presence on both platforms without having to hire programmers with different programming languages. And technologies like REACT NATIVE allow developers to reuse 95% of coding while creating iOS and Android.

Pro Tip: If you are planning to develop an application like Souq, keep in mind that it was developed in a custom platform which is quite expensive but adds a great level of flexibility. You can choose to develop an e-commerce app like Souq using the Magento platform.

Magento is one of the leading e-commerce web development platforms that provides you with a perfect template for your shop, all you need is to dress it up. Also, it comes up with features including, multi-languages, Vendor login section, Auto-delivery module with multiple courier companies, online payment and other payment methods and more.

Now the question is how to make it functional and successful?

Step 2: Significant Things to Build a Success App

Developing an app is not a far fetched job for organizations. The real trouble is, how to make it successful in this thriving industry? What are the significant things that can make a huge difference in the success of your ecommerce app?

The set of features and functionalities are the major success driving factor in your ecommerce application. While there are many app developers in Dubai that can assure you the integration of the best features in your app but here the few that enable you to get started with an app in minutes.

Here are the features that help you create an app in minutes without coding:

• Add to Digital Cart: With more than 600,000+ product choices along with easy shop to cart, features gives shoppers a perfect vibe of purchasing items from the virtual mall. Buyer can add multiple items to their cart without leaving the current page. Just click on the item and click add to cart. They can shop from the multiple vendors listed on your online marketplace. Upon checkout, the cart then shows buyers the breakdown of the actual amount to pay with the details of the individual product.
• On-demand Product Delivery Methods: As Souq boasts a user-oriented marketplace to let merchants deliver products ordered by buyers, you need to firstly collaborate with the multiple brands that promise to manage shipping to the preferable shipping address at the time of purchase.
• Real-Time Tracking: GPS features is something that is available in nearly every mobile application as it allows to enhance service accuracy. Whether your e-commerce business on the web or mobile app, integration of GPs is something that you can’t miss on. By leveraging this feature, you can explore the nearest vendor and be able to shop from the desired location. In the same way, sellers can track the location of the buyers.
• Secure Payment Transaction Process: User’s data security is the top priority throughout the transaction and after the checkout process. To ensure a secured transaction process, make sure you have data encryption, use APIs, sending OTP, writing secure codes to avoid data risk. To develop this feature, you can choose to hire a software development company as they are experienced in customizing applications with this feature because there is no application built without a payment module.
• Multiple Payment Option: Add the option to make a payment with multiple payment options and improve the overall shopping experience. Let the users choose their preferred mode of payment whether it be credit/debit card, PayPal, wallet and more.
• Social Integration: Integrate social media in your app and let the shoppers share their reviews, feedback and products on their social media wall. Social media integration can further help your brand grow by indirectly marketing your app, while every time a user shares a product.
• Advanced Search Box & Filers: Improve the shopping experience of the users by adding the advanced search box that allows users to find exactly what they are looking for in a single click. Even users can make use of advanced filters to easily find the product that they are searching for.
• SMS Alert for Delivery and Return Information: Push notification can be a great feature for your app as it not only help you keep your users engaged with your app. But also allow you to send notification on the order confirmation, cancellation, deals, offers, sale, or discounts. Normally the delivery and return information can be found at the footer on an online shop website and this information is particularly important for clothing retailers as the industry has observed a high volume of return items.
• One step Registration Process: If you’re developing an e-commerce app like Souq, make sure you have a simple registration and login process. Allow users to register on the website, so that they don’t need to repeatedly enter the credentials while accessing the app. By simply entering the mobile number or email id, users can easily proceed with their shopping.
• Special offers and Wish List: The biggest selling point of Souq is it always has something unique to offer to its users. These offers attract the users to visit your app but maybe users are not willing to make an immediate purchase and want to save that product for later. So adding a wish list feature to your app will help them bookmark the product and alert the user when he comes back to shopping.

Pro Tip: So now with all these features, you can build a structure that offers a user experience like Souq.com. But that’s not all that you need to focus on. Apart from that its UX/UI design, framework, technologies, tools, and skills of app development companies in UAE also contribute to the success of the app.

So let’s proceed to the final step of the app development…

Step 3: Publishing the app on the App store

So finally setting up your app and preparing your app for release? It’s a multi-step process that involves various tasks. So let’s begin the game:

Quickstart to create an Android E-commerce App in Kotlin using Contentstack’s Android SDK.

Here are the prerequisites for the Android Ecommerce app:

• Android Studio Installed on your system
• Contentstack account

Whether you are a pro developer or a novice, the next few steps are drafted in a simple way to make sense for both levels for developers with any level of skills.

• Create a Stack: Log in to your Contentstack account or create a new stack. This stack will store all the data specific to your website.
• Preparing the App For Release: To add a publishing environment in Contentstack, go to your stack and click the “Settings’’ icon. Next, select Environments, and click on the +New Environment button. Give a suitable name to your environment and specify the base URL and select the language. Lastly, click on Add.

https://www.contentstack.com/docs/developers/set-up-environments/about-environments/

• Import Content Types: Import all your content files to your stack. To port, your files to the stack, firstly save the zipped folder of the JSON files on the local machine. Extract the files from the folder. Then, go to your stack in Contentstack and access “Content Models” from the left panel. Finally, click on the import button and select the JSON file saves on your machine.
• Add Content To The Stack: It’s time to create and publish entries for the content types that you have imported into the stack. Once you have added content, save and publish these entries. Now you need to use and configure the presentation layer.
• Clone and Configure the App: To get your app up and running quickly, we have created a sample Android app for this project. You need to download it and change the configuration. You can use the below command to download the app.

$ git clone https://github.com/contentstack/contentstack-android-ecommerce-app.git

unzip the folders that you have downloaded and add your Contentstack API Key, Delivery Token, Environment to the project during the SDK initialization step.

Stack stack = Contentstack.stack(context, “API_KEY”,”DELIVERY_TOKEN”,”ENVIRONMENT_NAME”);

• Set Up Android Studio and Initialize Android SDK
• Build and Run your Ecommerce app

Hurray, your app is ready to use!

How Much Does it Cost To Build an Ecommerce App Like Souq for your business?

There are a number of mobile app development companies in UAE that may assure you to get started with your basic e-commerce app with a starting price of $5000+. Hold on! Before you fall into that trap, keep in mind that the average cost of app development is starting from $37,000 to $57,000 and can go to any extent.

So predicting the right app development cost is a real challenge even for experienced app developers. There are lots of factors that can influence the app development cost. But, if we roughly estimate the app development cost then it will be approx $25,000 to $40,000 for the website. And if you want to build an e-commerce website with Magento, then the estimated cost will be $30k to $50k.

You must be wondering why there is a huge variation in the app development cost? So the cost of creating a mobile application counts on many factors that contribute to evolving essential business aspects and meeting business demands.

• App Platform: As discussed in step one, Native apps are quite expensive to develop as you need to hire programmers with platform-specific skills. On the other hand, you can choose to hire a cross-platform app developer to create a hybrid application that seamlessly runs on multiple platforms and costs you less. In fact, cross-platform app development will cost you two-third of the native app development cost.
• Features and Functionalities: E-commerce app development’s cost is highly influenced by the features you choose to integrate. The more features you add to the app development, the higher the price will be. Given that, developers required extra time and efforts to build advanced features like OTP authentication, in-app chatting, Chatbot, AR, AI-based suggestions and more.
• App Size: The complexity of the e-commerce marketplace mobile application can bring a great variation in the app development cost. The overall size of the app including design, purpose, and traits affects the costs.
• App Development Team: The development cost of your e-commerce app is also depending upon the team you choose to hire and from where you decided to hire. The average hourly cost to hire app developers in UAE will be starting from $25+ whereas the USA, UK, Europe can be the few places with the most expensive resources.

Conclusion

With the rapidly growing popularity and user base of e-commerce marketplace models like Souq are not only influencing startups for entrepreneurs from all across the globe to invest in e-commerce applications but also encouraging them to unlock new ways of generating revenue for their business. Hopefully, this blog has given you all the details that help you develop e-commerce applications such as features, platform choice, monetizing method and more.

If you are one of those e-commerce business owners and startups planning their expansion to get a competitive edge for their brand, can look forward to hiring a mobile app development company in Dubai to get a customized solution tailored to your business needs.