The buying habits of average shoppers have changed dramatically over the last three years. Now customers expect to buy goods including makeup products, clothes, kitchen utensils, and even grocery and home plants online and have all these delivered right to their door. That's why many of us consider gaining a mobile presence as an addition to a brick-and-mortar outlet. But where to start?

In this article, we are talking about the types of online shopping apps, essential features, and market trends, as well as providing an e-commerce app development cost breakdown.

What is an e-commerce application?

While e-commerce is a process of buying and selling products online, an e-commerce application is a piece of software that provides users with an opportunity to browse for and purchase goods online. In the process of shopping app development, you may develop two types of apps: online stores and marketplaces.

Online store

An online store is an e-commerce platform owned by one retailer. These online shopping apps are usually associated with already existing brick-and-mortar outlets and help them gain an online presence.

Most commonly, online stores are owned by world-known brands since they have enough marketing resources to promote their own eCommerce apps. Online stores help retailers gather client information that helps build trustful relationships, arrange marketing campaigns, and interact with clients. No wonder prominent brands like IKEA and Nike quit their partnership with Amazon in 2019 and built their own online stores.

Marketplace

Marketplace is an eCommerce platform that displays goods from many different retailers. Some marketplaces provide retailers with inventories and sell the products directly from them, while others let the retailers control the entire fulfillment process and serve just as intermediaries between retailers and customers.

Marketplaces are already developed platforms with a high level of customer engagement and traffic. So, the retailers don't deal with anything connected to the development and growth of the marketplace like UI/UX design, advertising, or SEO promotion. The only thing a retailer needs to do is set up an account and follow the terms of the platform. Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Walmart, and Alibaba are the most common marketplace examples. This type of online shopping app is more expensive to develop since it involves a bigger number of user roles, that's why their app development cost is higher than the cost of developing an online store.

Learn more about eCommerce app development, inspiring apps, and UI/UX design in Stories and articles.

E-commerce apps market overview

It is known that the average shopper makes 19 to 22 online transactions per year. It means that some people buy goods from online shopping apps more than twice a month.

Moreover, it was estimated that global e-commerce sales reached $4.9 trillion in 2021, and this number is projected to reach $7.4 trillion by 2025. It's hard to count the precise number of existing online shopping apps, but surveys show that nowadays, this number is somewhere between 12 and 24 million units. It means that the e-commerce market keeps growing and still has room for new applications and websites, so it's the perfect time for e-commerce app development.

Features worth implementing during shopping app development

When it comes to e-commerce mobile app development, you won't get away with the development of a single mobile app. If you are going to have an online shopping app, you will need to develop an admin panel that complements it. When it comes to e-commerce development of the marketplace, you will have to develop an eco-system of three apps: a customer app, a retailer's app, and an admin panel. In this part, let's enumerate the key features that need to be included in the list of expenses when you calculate an e-commerce app development cost:

• User registration — provide your users with functionality to to sign up and log in using social media, email, or phone number verification for secure access.
• User profiles — give users an opportunity to save their personal information in their profile, so they could reuse it to make further orders.
• Item listings — allow users to browse lists of items, and provide a clear search and filtration system, so users can navigate the selection of your products more easily.
• Detailed product cards — thorough product description is definitely a feature worth adding to your app development cost breakdown. Display products with detailed text descriptions, high-quality images, videos, size tables, and other info.
• Shopping cart — facilitates the addition, removal, and editing of items in the cart, with options to save items for later or add to a wishlist.
• Secure payment functionality — in the process of e-commerce mobile app development, integrate multiple payment options like credit/debit cards and PayPal, along with wallet integration and reward points for convenient transactions.
• Order management — to make users feel less anxious about their order provide detailed data about delivery procedures. Provide real-time order tracking, detailed order history, and downloadable invoices for user convenience.
• Push notifications — enhance your online shopping app with notifications to remind your customers of important points. Send notifications for order confirmations, updates, promotional offers, and discounts to keep users engaged.
• Ratings and reviews — if you work with an app development company, develop a rating system together with your contractor. Allow users to leave reviews and ratings for products and sellers, enhancing trust and credibility.

By the way, our team provides e-commerce app development services: we can design an online store or a marketplace interface and offer a suitable technical solution.

E-commerce application examples to inspire from

Except for basic functionality included in regular e-commerce mobile apps, you will need some features to break away from the competitors. Such features will make development more complicated and raise the total e-commerce app development cost but at the same time, they make the in-app experience more engaging and are most likely to raise retention rate inside your e-commerce app. We have decided to enumerate several features that popular e-commerce companies use to engage their customers.

Amazon

Amazon is a common example of a marketplace. Except for basic features, this mobile e-commerce app provides its users with an advanced search flow and the ability to get a full impression of the chosen product. Amazon's customers can use voice search to browse for goods, read reviews, and take 360-degree product views.

Sephora

Sephora's e-commerce mobile app provides customers with features for smooth browsing, making wishlists, quick checkout, and scanning products for searching and reviewing. Sephora customers can use Virtual Artist, an augmented reality feature that allows them to try makeup products instantly.

Warby Parker

As an addition to the official website, Warby Parker provides users with an e-commerce mobile app where they can make virtual try-ons. The app users can sort the frames by color, width, size, and shape, as well as estimate the way they look on the face.

H&M

H&M's e-commerce mobile app is a perfect example of an online store owned and promoted by one famous brand. The app provides conveniences both for shoppers who prefer buying things online and for those who like going to brick-and-mortar outlets. With the help of this app, customers can scan items and immediately buy them online in case the location doesn't have the color or size they want to purchase.

Nike

Nike sells its products via its official website and e-commerce mobile app. Its application is not just a purchasing tool. Using it, customers of Nike can get training tips, read success stories, and get style advice from Nike's in-house stylists. Thus, Nike encourages its customers to stay motivated and focus on their exercise goals, as well as enlarges the brand's popularity and sales.

Web or mobile approach: which one is better for e-commerce app development

Both of the approaches have a right to exist. However, we think it's better to stick to a mobile-first approach when it comes to shopping app development. This means that it's better to start your e-commerce business with a mobile app and then complement it with the version complementing the PC screen.

With this opinion, we rely on the fact that mobile e-commerce sales have reached $2.2 trillion in 2023 and now makeup 60% of all sales around the world. However, with up-to-date technologies, you may not choose one of these approaches and get a solution that would match both formats. To understand what options you have, let's discuss key methods to develop an online shopping app.

Native or cross-platform e-commerce mobile app development

There are two methods to build an e-commerce mobile app. You can build separate e-commerce apps for iOS and Android operating systems using native coding languages — Swift and Objective-C for iOS and Java and Kotlin for Android. On the other hand, you can implement a cross-platform approach in the process of e-commerce mobile app development. This means that your IT contractor can build a single codebase and implement it to build both iOS and Android apps. Cross-platform frameworks include React Native, Flutter, Xamarine, and others.

According to some studies, about 37 of the top U.S. leading retailers like Nike, Amazon, and Etsy prefer using cross-platform approach to develop their online shopping apps. These companies have started running their business with web apps that have been improving for many years. If they ever wanted to build native apps, all the work done with their web apps would be thrown away, and they would have to start building new products from scratch. That's why many brands rebuild their web apps into cross-platform ones and leave only some parts native.

After a short discussion with our CTO, we agreed that the cross-platform model matches e-commerce apps best. It allows the implementation of all the essential features of e-commerce apps and makes app maintenance easier. The app development cost of products built with React Native and other cross-platform technologies is also smaller compared to apps built natively. All the basic and unique features of the retail apps mentioned above can be implemented with a cross-platform model, except for augmented reality try-on. That's why a cross-platform model is perfect for creating an e-commerce app.

Web development

You can also stick to a web development approach and get an e-commerce website optimized to both mobile and PC screens. In this case, users won't need to download your e-commerce app to their devices and will be able to access it via the web browser.

Our app development company specializes in creating such websites with the help of Next.js Commerce. This is a ready-made out-of-box solution that helps to deploy e-commerce websites within unique UI/UX design within just a week. Such websites have a responsive design, that's why they can be used both on PC and mobile. They are also high-performing, simple in terms of app maintenance, have all the necessary features for an e-commerce app, show good SEO performance, and are accompanied by the admin panel for simple store management.

This development method is perfect for testing your business idea since such e-commerce apps are built within just 2-3 weeks. You can check the feasibility of your business idea within such a short period.

E-commerce application development process

Our team has been dealing with e-commerce mobile app development for more than 15 years already. During this time we have worked out our own approach to app development. Projects that we work on go through several essential stages. Our approach ensures that the e-commerce app development team is fully aligned with the customer's requirements and builds the product that the startupper expects to get.

1. Analytics

Before diving into the e-commerce app development process, it's crucial to define your business goal and analyze the target audience and market.

Here's an example of how our team runs the analytics process. Once an Australian entrepreneur asked us to create a food marketplace. He owned an inventory and delivered products to local restaurants. To automate this process, he wanted to get his own marketplace app.

However, after thorough research of the market and business made by our analyst, it became clear that the entrepreneur did not receive enough orders for the app development to pay off. That's why an alternative was offered: It was easier and more cost-effective to set up an Instagram page and automate the delivery using it. As a result, our analytics helped the entrepreneur to opt out of e-commerce mobile app development and find a solution that better matched the purpose.

In general, the situation is the following: If you own a small local brand, it's better to sell your goods via social networks or an already existing marketplace. But if you own a well-known brand, you'll need to find channels to promote your online shopping app and attract customers.

This analytics stage helps us ensure that our app development company offers startuppers the solution they need exactly. This helps to cut e-commerce app development costs in the long run.

2. UI/UX design

The success of the e-commerce app is measured by the number of complete purchases, and UI/UX design is a thing that directly affects both conversion and user retention rates. Here are a few things our app development company does to achieve this in the process of e-commerce app design:

• Build intuitive navigation

We think through every visual element we design and follow platform guidelines. The flow we create allows users to quickly understand which page they are at, where the search bar and filters are, how they can get to the home page or catalog, how they can pay for the goods and when they are delivered.

• Create UI consistent with the branding style

Our designers embed the branding style into the app interface, making sure that colors and UI elements correspond to the commercial offer.

• Present the items effectively

Some goods have many parameters that need to be described in the product card. The app users won't want to search for product information on several pages. That's why we aim to keep the balance between product photos and descriptions in online shopping apps. Thus users can get a full impression of each product.

• Keep CTAs and core elements noticeable

We establish a clear hierarchy between UI elements to make them easier to notice. Also, we keep CTAs within the thumb-friendly zone, which is the left or lower left part of the screen.

3. Development

Choosing the right tech stack for your project can help you minimize the app development cost in the long run. With an up-to-date tech stack, you get a high-performing solution with many pre-built parts to cut down on the development timeline and a wide development community that can help you with app maintenance.

4. Release

We managed to automate the process of release with the help of Expo. With Expo, our developers don't have to do any manual work to release apps to the stores. Everything is done in Expo's cloud.

Expo provides a feature called “Over the air”. If you need to release updates or make minor adjustments, you may not go through the review of the stores again and again. The review sometimes takes a few days, so this feature helps us save the time and resources of our clients. All in all, this tool helps us to make app maintenance easier.

5. Maintenance after the release

Our team tends to create long-term partnerships with our customers. So, we keep working with applications even after the project work is over. We add new features to the apps, improve them based on user reviews, and fix bugs in case there are any. When you are involved in development, you need to be aware that app maintenance cost makes up 1-2% of the total e-commerce app development cost per month.

E-commerce application development cost

To provide you with the average numbers on e-commerce app development costs, let's take a look at the stats provided by Clutch, a marketplace to search for service contractors. Depending on the complexity of your product, the app development cost will most likely make the following:

Let's have a look at the list of essential flows in the e-commerce application. Imagine that we have decided to build a mobile marketplace. Marketplaces establish the communication of three user types: customers, retailers, and admins. Each of them will need a separate flow.

Customer

• Register or login flow
• Search for products flow
• Payment flow
• Track an order flow

While the mobile interface will be enough for the customer's part of the online shopping app, the panels for retailers and admins will be more convenient if we develop a web app for them.

Retailer

• Register or login flow
• Goods management
• Orders management
• Company profile management

Admin

• Retailers management
• Customers management
• Goods management

This is the list of essential flows that the marketplace needs no matter if it's an MVP or a fully-fledged product. The final e-commerce app development cost depends on the number of standard and unique features the customer wants to add within these flows.

We estimated the approximate app development cost of such a product and compared it to the prices of US agencies and freelancers. The average time required to build an e-commerce app is 14 weeks.

Wrapping up

We have collected the key points mentioned in the article:

• The market of e-commerce keeps growing from year to year and the global sales market is expected to reach $8.1 trillion by 2026. This means it has room for new shopping app development projects and undertakings.
• When it comes to e-commerce app development it's better to choose a mobile-first approach. Many world-known brands created cross-platform apps and left only some of their parts native. Most of the essential features of online shopping apps can be implemented with a cross-platform model, that's why they are a great match. You may also opt for Next.js Commerce 2.0 and get an e-commerce website within just a few weeks.
• Before starting the e-commerce app development process, it's important to run market research and analyze the target audience and the product to understand which automated solution matches your business idea better.
• The e-commerce app development cost is affected by several factors including app complexity, type of the online shopping app, location and experience of your mobile app development company, number of platforms you need to reach, complexity of the app maintenance, and other factors.

Our team has been engineering software for 15 years. We can both help you choose the right tech solution for your business as well as create a compelling interface that your users will love.