How to Build a User-Friendly Shopping App?

Remember those days, when it was enough to just have a website? Bad news - they’re gone. With every coming year, people spend less time in front of their computers and more - with smartphones in their hands. Here a few more stats which prove that the idea to develop a Shopping Application for Android and iOS is a good one:

• Retail apps accounted for 44% of eCommerce transactions (desktop and mobile websites for 33% and 23% accordingly).
• Apps recorded a 21% buyer conversion rate, while mobile web managed to reach only 6%.
• The lowest cart abandonment rate (20%) was also noticed in mobile applications. Desktop (68%) and mobile sites (90%) had considerably worse results.

But I guess, you already know that and it’s exactly why you’re reading this to develop a Shopping App now. What are the technical ways to do this? Let’s try to find the best one for your case together!

👍 3 Main Shopping App Development Approaches

I bet the next thought you had right after deciding to make a Shopping App was “What is the most cost-efficient way to do this?”. That’s the moment when it’s important to make the right shot from the first try. And the possible options in this case are:

• App Builders.
• Native app development.
• React Native app development.

Let’s see the ups and downs of each option!

App Builders

You’ve probably stumbled upon Shopify-like builders while looking for ways to develop a shopping app. Funny thing is that they all promise the same: you can build an application having no coding experience, just by “dragging & dropping” the needed sections. It’s rather fast, cheap and really doesn’t involve any special knowledge. Sounds like a magic bullet, right?

What they don’t promise you is high conversion rates and low cart abandonment rates, effective retargeting tools and custom UI solutions, which match exactly your brand & audience, and which improve the overall Customer Experience and LTV - in other words, things that really matter to your business.

By the way, we at Stormotion got React Native app development services down to a fine art. If you want our help to develop a shopping app for your business, shoot us a message by hitting the button under this article!

No matter which approach you’ll choose, it won’t change the list of key features that your customers expect to see. What are they? Let’s brainstorm it together!

📱 How to Make a Shopping App: Key Features

A good eCommerce application kills two birds with one stone:

• On the one hand, it creates new opportunities for your business, allows you to retarget customer and establish a new channel to sell your goods.
• On the other hand, it should become a convenient shopping tool for your existing customers, that helps them to order your goods even faster and easier from their phone/tablet.

To ensure that your Product works both ways, we recommend the following structure for your application!

Product Screen 🛍

Users will be mainly visiting your application for one reason - because it’s the most convenient way for them to interact with your business and goods. Therefore, bring what you offer upfront and don’t create any barriers.

The main rule here is that you should never ask your client to create a profile in your application before he reaches the checkout stage (when you’re really need some personal data for shipping and charging the payment). Otherwise, modern users will leave your app right away.

An option of buying as a guest may encourage some users to finish the order.

How to make the registration process as user-friendly as possible? Implement a Social Login feature! It allows them to create account in your application by reusing personal data from their social media accounts. Fast and easy - just what your audience is looking for!

Push Notifications 🔔

Push Notifications is another obvious reason to create a mobile app for online shopping on iOS and Android. Why? Because websites, even mobile ones, just can’t do it!

At the same time, Push Notifications are a powerful tool to communicate with your customers and retarget them. For example, by informing users about current sales and special offers, you can keep users interested in using your application.

But the true king here is retargeting. It’s used to reach specific groups of users with highly customized messages: for example, to inform customers about special offers regarding the goods they often buy or remind those who abandoned their carts to finish the order.

The following stats by invesp prove their effectiveness:

• Sending Push Notifications can increase retention rates by 3-10 times.
• 48% of users made an in-store purchase after receiving a Push Notification triggered by profile data.
• With just 1 onboarding-related notification to newly acquired users, it’s possible to increase retention rates by 71% over 2 months.

Analytics 📊

Finally, don’t forget to integrate analytical tools as you make a shopping app. This is quite a helpful feature that will help you understand whether you’re moving in the right direction and what sides of your business can be improved.

🛠 Tech Tips: What Tools Will Help You to Develop a Shopping Application for Android and iOS

When it comes to the development itself, the right tools can help you cut the shopping app development cost and ensure that your application works smoothly, and provide your customers with an outstanding experience. Here are some technologies that will help you to build an MVP for the shopping application:

• You probably remember our recommendation about payment gateways: develop a shopping app with at least a few options to choose from. For this purpose, use Android Pay API, Apple Pay API, API by PayPal, Braintree SDK or Stripe API.
• When it comes to Push Notifications, there are a bunch of options. Our personal winner is Firebase Cloud Messaging. However, OneSignal, Accengage, Amazon SNS and Urban Airship are also good solutions to consider.
• Facebook Mobile SDKs is a traditional tool that can be used to implement a fast social login process and provide you with access to analytical tools.
• Voucherify API is your friend if you want to manage your coupons and campaigns, track custom events etc.
• We recommend building the app using React Native. This will allow building a cost-effective cross-platform app with native UX.

First of all, you can see how guys improved the searching feature. Voice commands are a trend now so why not to use it in your application. It not only adds some extra points to the overall UX and Customer Experience but also shows that the company doesn’t hesitate to use the best technologies.

Also, pay attention to the “Style Finder” feature. It improves the basic sorting and filtering functionality by adding some specific categories - like colour, sleeves, long, neck and so on. It does not only look quite unique (we haven’t seen it in other shopping apps) but increases the chances that customers will find what they’ve been looking for and finish their journey in the app with a purchase!

💡 Conclusion

These were Stormotion Team’s insights on how to make a shopping app for your business. Now, as you have a clear picture of what benefits you can get and what the structure of your application should be, your key task is to find a skillful team who can build an efficient development process and get things done!