Right now more than 1.2 billion people worldwide access the internet from their smartphones. This figure is four times the whole population of the US.
We are living in the 21st century and now several technologies are there to make each of our task or work more faster. Now no one wants to go to physical stores for shopping as now it can be done through ecommerce websites and ecommerce mobile apps. This is saving lots of people’s time which otherwise they have to spend if they go to stores for shopping after crossing hurdle of heavy traffic on the roads.
The advent of smartphones and cheap internet data encouraged this trend even further and soon app development for eCommerce business had also started. The result is that most of the people now prefer to do shopping through ecommerce mobile apps. Another reason why people like to use an online shopping app is that they are not just looking to buy a great product but they are always looking for a great user experience which they get when they use any of the popular ecommerce mobile app.
As per estimates, retail ecommerce sales reached $2.3 trillion in 2017 having a mobile share of whopping 59% or $1.4 Trillion. In 2021, mobile ecommerce could rake in $3.5 trillion with almost 3/4th i.e. 73% of total ecommerce sales.
The modern generation is interested in using more gadgets and digital devices as they make their life much more easier, faster and convenient. Hence, if you are an entrepreneur than you too should try your best to make your customers’ experience of using your services or products highly user-friendly, easy and enjoyable.
If you ignore this then you are taking risk of losing your business as in long run customers will realize this and they will shift to your competitors who are providing faster, easy and technology powered services. Hence, when you plan to Hire App developer then do discuss these things with him in the beginning itself.
In today’s time mobility is gaining its significance and usefulness quite fast and now almost 80% of the users use mobiles for doing many of their tasks. Mobile is actually a handy device that you can take anywhere whether in market, office, homes and you can use it even when you are on the go i.e. travelling from one place to another. Hence, it is important to attract this huge audience by going for Mobile app development for eCommerce and developing and launching your ecommerce mobile app.
Let’s now look at the mobile retail commerce sales as percentage of retail e-commerce sales from 2017 to 2021 in the US market.
Once you have taken your firm decision of launching your ecommerce business you have to look at its technical aspect i.e. how to go for User Friendly App Development i.e. how to build a highly user friendly and amazing ecommerce mobile app. For this you have to approach a professional ecommerce app development company which can use its experience to build a dedicated mobile app for your ecommerce business.
You can even go to Hire App Developer who works on freelance basis if you find someone really expert and experienced. But the point to be noted here is that you have to take care of certain things before that company or developer starts developing your dedicated ecommerce mobile app.
In this article, I am going to discuss about these things so that the ecommerce app which the app developers will develop for you, carries all the ingredients that are required to make it highly successful and popular on the respective App Stores i.e. Android app on Google Play Store and iOS app on Apple App Store.
Essential Features To be Included While Building a Highly Effective and Successful Ecommerce Mobile App:
User Friendly and Intuitive Design
Customers decide whether to continue using the app or switch to its competitors within first few seconds of opening the app. With such a low attention span, it is important that your app design is such that the customers can understand it easily and quickly. If the app has a complicated design with lots of animations and text, then it can frustrate the customers.
Hence, when you go for eCommerce app development you should make sure that your app is highly user friendly with simple user interface. Then only you will be able to provide best user experience to your customers.
Full Proof App Security
Ecommerce apps deals with lots of sensitive and private information of users, their trade and transactions through the app when people buy something using them. This information can have Date of Birth, address, mobile number, bank account details, debit/credit card details and more. Hence, it is very important to make sure that your app is secure.
You cannot take the risk of hackers taking control of or stealing such private information of customers which is stored by ecommerce mobile app. Hence, when you go for Business App Development then you have to give highest level of priority to making your app safe and secure so that it doesn’t have any loopholes left when it is launched in the app store for the use of customers.
Amazing, Informative and Attractive Images
Research has found out that visual information is much more effective than text. In fact, visual information can be processed 60,000 times faster than text by our brain.
In an ecommerce website there is a lot of information which quality images can communicate about your brand and your products. It will be even better if you hire a professional photographer to click images of your products and you upload these quality images only into your ecommerce app. The people who use low quality images in their ecommerce app tend to lose their customers in long term.
• Integration of Various Social Media Channels into the App
Most of the people don’t like to fill long forms on any website or mobile app for the registration or login process. If the form is too long, many of them skip the registration and go for some other app through which they can buy the products with ease. Hence, you should provide social media integration into your app to ease the signup and login process. Later on you can even enable the customers to share their experience of using your app on social media which will ultimately help your app only as it will get many new visitors/users and free word of mouth publicity.
• Easy Checkout Process
It is a well-known fact that the abandonment rate is low in the physical stores while it is quite high in the case of online shopping carts. The typical shopping cart abandonment rate for online retailers varies between 60% to 80%, with an average of 67.91%.
This high level of abandonment rate in case of ecommerce stores is mainly due to the complexity of the checkout process. Therefore, it is advised that you keep the checkout process very simple, direct, clean and as short as possible. Moreover, you should provide all possible alternatives to the customers when they are going through the checkout process for example, many options for doing payments like through net banking, credit/debit card, e-wallets and more.
Product Reviews and Ratings
As per a research report, about 55% of online customers say that product reviews are important for making purchase decisions. What that means is that most of the customers want to know what other customers are saying about the products they are planning to buy. That means if the product has got good reviews then only they will buy it from your ecommerce app.
Hence, the ecommerce app should have a feature by which people can see and read the product’s reviews and check the ratings given by past customers clearly. If product reviews and ratings are easily accessible, then it will convert your app users into customers.
• AI based Recommendation Engine
If you want to make your ecommerce app to be the best, then you must include and implement a recommendation engine based on latest AI technologies and algorithms. A recommendation engine can analyze the customers’ behavior and patterns and show or display the personalized suggestions for them. It will show those products to the users which they are most likely to buy.
You must have experienced recommendation engines at the top websites like Amazon and Netflix whenever you visit their site or even when they send you offer emails having recommended products later on after you had made purchases on these sites.
These kinds of apps or websites use artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to analyze the vast data related to users’ preferences/likes and then they generate and show the related products which these users are more like to buy.
Google Analytics
Suppose you have built and launched your ecommerce app and now you may be thinking that it is doing well. But how you will be sure, and how you will find out which that features or things in your app are helping your business and which actually are hampering it. Kindly note that whatever is your eCommerce app development cost, you can use Google Analytics for free.
Using Google Analytics, you can find answers to all of the above questions. Google Analytics will give you a clear insight about your ecommerce app. Using it you can optimize your ecommerce app to function more efficiently and effectively as you will know which particular products are doing well and which aren’t, which age group or region of people are doing well for your business and which aren’t and many more such kinds of useful insights.
Conclusion :
Nowadays there are so many ecommerce websites and ecommerce mobile apps in the market and you have to beat this competition if you really want to make your ecommerce business a success. That’s why you have to use right set of tools, technologies, features and hire top app developers to make your ecommerce mobile app work amazingly well for you.
The first step in this process is to find a reputed Software Development Company which can take this responsibility from your solders and build a reliable ecommerce mobile app for you. Best such company will incorporate top and latest hi-tech features into your ecommerce mobile app.
Therefore, when you are looking to hire e-commerce developer to build your ecommerce app, always go for top mobile app development company and never compromise on this front. This will pave the way for the success of your ecommerce mobile app.
