How to Build a Budget-friendly Shopping App: Feature, Tech Stack and Cost
COVID-19 has nearly gone, but it still continues to affect both consumers and enterprises. In 2020, the eCommerce industry hit a jackpot. Where consumers switched to online shopping and every business wanted to be as big as eCommerce giant Amazon. This trend is still there.
Almost everyone has a smartphone in their pockets. 80% of total smartphone users shop online using their smartphones. Be it clothes, shoes, groceries, books or any other item. People love shopping online and that’s why developing online shopping is still the best choice in 2023.
Features of Shopping App
Once you’ve decided to go ahead with shopping app development, it is vital to list all the features your app needs. Keeping common features such as payment gateway or order tracking is fine, but here you should also think about advanced features that are in demand and can persuade your potential customers to buy from you.
Here are some suggestions to consider:
360° Product View
What if your online shopping app allows users to check out the products from different angles and gives them the same feeling as if it’s real? Doesn’t this sound good? The 360° product view feature does all that. Several big businesses use this feature to gain as many as buyers they can.
Personalised Recommendations
By implementing this feature you can actually persuade your customers to buy more from you. It is called upselling or helping buyers to make a more fruitful buying decision. How does this work?
The implementation of this personal recommendation feature is not as difficult as it may sound to some people. Simply analyse & use the customers’ data — of course not without their consent — and behaviour about what products they like or want.
When you have enough information to process, you can offer personalised recommendations to your customers.
Pro Tip: While incorporating the personalised recommendations feature in your app, make sure you take the consent of your customers. Otherwise, you may face hefty penalties.
Image Finder
Using this feature, customers can simply take a quick snap of the product and upload it to the app. As they do this, the app will run the picture through a number of sequences in order to find the same product or the same product categories.
Image finder does save a lot of time for buyers who are not well introduced to the product.
Push Notifications
Push notifications allow customers to remind of offers, coupons, promotions or items they have saved in their carts. It can be a great tool to attract customers’ attention and upsell them. But here is a catch as well. Before sending any sort of push notification, make sure your customers want to receive it or not, and if they want to, don’t send it too frequently.
Quick Checkouts
Credit card payments or wire transfers are not in the fashion anymore. Instead, there should be a quick mechanism where customers can pay in a flash. Mobile wallets or mobile money transfers are the best way to do that.
In a nutshell, payment checkout should be convenient irrespective of what PoS mechanism is used. Customers should be able to buy products without having to find their debit or credit cards.
Other than that, common features such as wishlists, chat, search bar and menu can be incorporated into the app.
Tech Stack for Developing a Shopping App
Once you have decided on features you need to have in your shopping app, you can take the next step which is tech stack selection. But before you go ahead with it, think about the platform.
Obviously, you would want to develop app for both iOS and Android platforms, but that is not everything. Should it be native or cross-platform?
Here I’ve mentioned some pointers that would help you to decide.
Native for Shopping App Development
Choosing native app development means the app you’re going to develop is specifically for a particular platform. You can develop for both iOS and Android separately.
Native development is time-consuming and expensive as you would be needing two different developers for development. One for Android and another for iOS.
Cross-platform for Shopping App Development
Building apps for Android and iOS is less expensive and less time-consuming than native as it allows developers to use the same code on both platforms (Android and iOS).
When you have one codebase, it is easier to maintain and your hired developers have to spend minimal time on maintenance.
Here are some popular cross-platform development tools:
React Native
Ionic
Flutter
Xamarin
The Development Cost of Building an Online Shopping App
The total development cost of developing an online shopping app varies on various factors such as:
- Core Features
- Platform — Native or Cross-platform
- App Complexity
- UI/UX Design
- API/App integration
It is totally understandable that an MVP is should be developed instead of a full-featured app. With this vision, you can incorporate the following features into your MVP:
- User registration
- Login/logout management system
- Search bar
- Shopping basket
- Payment gateway
- Chatbot
Conclusion
Mobile app development for shopping is helping many businesses to grow. However, such mobile apps cannot be built in a day or week. It will take a significant amount of your time. You may reconsider many features while the app would be in the development stage.
These are things you can consider while developing a budget-friendly shopping app. Now, you have a clear picture of what features you can include in your app and which platform or tech stack you can go for and the factors which determine the cost.
