Why & How to Create a Mobile App for Small Business

In this article, we’ll talk about how you might benefit from integrating a mobile app into your business’s workflow in detail. Additionally, we are going to cover extra two options (white-label apps and app builders) for how you can get the app and make an FAQ to make certain aspects clear.

Finally, we’ll give you some technological tips based on our expertise as a mobile & web development company. So, if you find any of these relevant — welcome!

8️⃣ Benefits of Building a Mobile App for your Small Business

Let’s take a look at all the benefits you might get from implementing a mobile app into your workflow.

# 1: Sales Boost 💲

One of the most beneficial reasons why you should build a mobile app is sales increase. There are multiple cases when developing a mobile app allowed a significant sales boost:

• Domino’s Pizza’s online sales in the UK increased by 28% after the mobile app was released. Currently, it’s responsible for as much as more than half of online orders.
• Taco Bell’s app also boosted sales of the company. Moreover, it was reported that orders made through the mobile app were usually 20% more profitable than the in-person ones.
• Zara’s app increased sales of the company by an unbelievable 60%.

It can be:

• What goods and services are the most popular among your consumers.
• When users are most active.
• What their typical behavioral patterns in your app are.

💼 Custom Development vs White-Label Apps vs App Builders

When building a mobile app, you can opt for several options. So, in this article, we’ll review 3 options for you to choose from — custom mobile app development, buying an app from a white-label provider, and using app builders.

Custom Development

Custom development implies building an app from scratch with every single feature being designed specifically for your use case. This way, you get 100% personalization and convenience since all parts of development like the UX/UI design are up to you.

So, this option is the least reliable yet the easiest one. It might be suitable for you if you just want to test the idea but don’t have enough budget to build a well-functioning MVP, for example.

❓ FAQ on Custom App Development

In this section, we’ll answer some questions on custom mobile app development — it’ll definitely help you understand the process even better.

Is it Easier to Build an App if I Already Have a Website?

To begin with, having a website doesn’t make the coding process easier since the web and mobile products don’t usually share codebases. Yet, it surely is easier to build an app in case you have a well-functioning website.

Here they are:

• If you can find someone who already worked with the development team you want to contact, consider asking them to give you some feedback on how their partnership went.
• It’s a good idea to check their specialization. For instance, if you think both teams are professionally equal, you might choose the one that has more experience in your industry.
• Look for a team with transparent pricing, billing, and invoicing processes.
• Try to find a team that addresses and communicates all issues - it’s a key to a successful partnership.
• Choose a team that suggests alternatives rather than blindly follows your instructions.

🤖 Tech Tips

The first aspect we’d like to cover is how to choose between building an iOS or Android app. There are two crucial moments to pay attention to:

1. Android is used by a higher number of people. As Statista’s research states, 73% of mobile users all over the world use an Android device, while iOS has 26% of users on its side.
2. Yet, with significantly fewer users, people on the iOS market generate $9B more revenue to app owners, compared to Android users.

So, if your priority is increasing your digital presence, you can consider building an Android app. But if you want to have an audience that pays more, an iOS app might be more suitable.

Luckily, you don’t have to limit yourself by building an app for only 1 operating system — there’s a way you can build one for both.

And last but not least, here’s a list of useful 3rd-Party integrations:

• Push-Notifications: iZooto, Sendpulse.
• Emailing: SendGrid, Gmail API.
• Payments: Braintree, Stripe, Solarisbank.
• Calendar: Google Calendar, Nylas, Zoho.
• Communicational Tools: WhatsApp API, Sendbird.

💰 What Affects Mobile App Development Costs?

So as to plan the budget for the app development in advance, you should take these cost components into account:

• Number & complexity of features.
• 3rd-party integrations (if you want to have such).
• The design.
• An hourly rate/salary of the software developers.

💡 Takeaways

To wrap it up, we’d like to say that mobile apps can significantly boost your business and growth with the right approach. But what is the right approach after all?

Even though it’ll be individual for each separate use case, we can give you some tips:

• Try not to deploy all features at once. Let your customers get accustomed to the new product of yours and then add new features to improve the user experience.
• Ask for feedback and reviews before launching an app from your most loyal customers.
• Actually listen to customers’ feedback. At the end of the day, they’re likely to be the most active users.
• Use loyalty features.
• Provide a high personalization level.

If you need any help with the development or have some questions left, feel free to reach out to us. We’d be more than happy to help you!