Featured image for 5 Things to Keep in Mind While Developing an eCommerce Mobile App

5 Things to Keep in Mind While Developing an eCommerce Mobile App

Featured image for 5 Things to Keep in Mind While Developing an eCommerce Mobile App

There has never been such a better time for mobile commerce. You can now catch up with and shop the latest fashions in the UK while lying comfortably in your bed in the US, or order lunch via Uber Eats while being stuck at the office. Mobile is increasingly becoming a preferred touchpoint that connects a retailer and shoppers. At the same time, e-commerce companies are taking advantage of the enormous benefits on the mobile side. It’s a win-win.

If your company offers an e-commerce app on mobile to customers, you’ve picked the perfect time to seize this opportunity for your brand, as 90% of mobile time is spent on apps. But with thousands of mobile apps vying for consumers’ attention, you need to stay ahead of your competitors and “tow” more users to install and engage with your app. It’s essential to build a mobile app strategy that gets results.

Follow this guide until the end to learn more about how to boost the growth of your e-commerce mobile app effectively!

5 things to consider when developing a mobile app

1. Target Audience

Above all, the first thing that any e-commerce company should take into consideration is investing time and effort in getting to know their customers well. There are only 3 words but powerful and can totally turn the situation around. This means having a clear understanding of them - who they are, how they think, and what they really need - and then relating that to the solutions their e-commerce app can offer. Most of the ideas are targeted to nail down a specific task or function rather than a specific audience, but it’s a mistake that can cost much more in the long run.

Developing an eCommerce Mobile App

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So, you can base on the following tips to create your own way to approach your target audience:

  1. Be clear about the value of your product or service
  2. Compile data on your current customers (age, location, gender, language, educational level, spending power and behaviors, and interests)
  3. Create online communities (like Facebook or Whatsapp) to capture users’ behaviors
  4. Test social ads on your target market
  5. Organize participatory workshops and let customers experience the design and functionality live.
You have to know who you are building your app for before you start. Otherwise, you’re going in rather blindly, and that will eventually lead nowhere.

2. Mobile Platforms

When you intend to build a mobile app, remember that mobile platforms play a crucial role. Before choosing a platform, you should evaluate some factors like the age group, the country you are penetrating, business type, or industry. For example, if you are about to get into the USA market, you should focus mainly on iOS and Android operating systems rather than Windows or BlackBerry OS.

Mobile Platforms Developing an eCommerce Mobile App

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Moreover, you need to know which language is natively supported by that platform. For instance, iOS apps are based on Objective-C or Swift, while Android apps are developed with Java or Kotlin. Hence, before initiating your mobile app from scratch, you need to discuss with your technical team to choose the most appropriate mobile platforms.

3. Design

Your app should aim for instant brand recognition rather than show off all multiple functions. It should be “Ah! I know this brand” kind of feeling. It is regarded as one of the most important factors which will determine the doom or bloom of your mobile app.

Design Developing an eCommerce Mobile App

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Having created an attractive design, you can bring clarity to the interface and remove all obstacles from users.

Here are some useful pieces of advice for generating a really intuitive design:

  1. Keep your design simple. It is essential to have minimal features in your app. With a neat and minimalistic design approach, your customers can find it engaging and user-friendly to follow.
  2. Content is your interface. Try to get rid of any unnecessary content that doesn’t support your users. By doing this, you’ll allow them to focus on what they’re looking for.
  3. Make navigation better. To keep users glued to your app, the navigation should be easier, faster and smoother. For this purpose, you can add an informative screen tour, which will reduce the churning rate of your app.
  4. Use high-quality images. Good images contribute a lot to the buying process, as 67% of consumers say that the quality of a product image is “very important” in selecting and purchasing a product.
  5. Don’t overuse push notifications. Have you ever been bombarded with a huge number of useless notifications that annoy and totally distract you? Unnecessary notifications are one of the main reasons that drive your customers away.

4. Accepting Payments

If you are developing a mobile app for your e-commerce store, it is critical that you provide customers with an online payment gateway through which they can make payments. This enables customers to easily pay for their goods and services right at the moment, just like the fact that you need a good payment gateway to sell on your website.

Accepting Payments Developing an eCommerce Mobile App

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Another point that needs taking into account is simplifying the checkout process. If you have ever found yourself stuck during checkout, even though you had chosen a perfect item, you know how frustrating it can get. You don’t want your customers to leave just because of the complicated and confusing payment process. Therefore, apps should be designed to speed up this process with as few clicks as possible.

5. Security

Mobile device users are seriously sensitive to security and privacy. Once they suspect that your business is less than 100% secure, they will not stick around and uninstall your app immediately.

Therefore, you should be sure that you understand the privacy regulations for both your industry and the geographic locations you serve. For example, if you are running a business in the European Union, you have to be familiar with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which aims primarily to give control to individuals over their personal data inside and outside the EU and EEA (European Economic Area).

Security Developing an eCommerce Mobile App

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Once you get comprehensive knowledge about regulatory requirements, work with your IT team to make sure that all your customers’ information is protected, secure, and private. Use this information to develop your own mobile privacy policy and make it available on your website, within your mobile app, and anywhere people share information with you via mobile devices.

Conclusions

It can be clearly seen that the importance of adopting effective business strategies is undeniable. And if you want to go with mobile eCommerce, having an app is a must. If you have a few solid schemes up your sleeve, you can coax more and more customers to download your mobile app and purchase your goods and services.

The 5 above-mentioned strategies are crucial to help you develop a roadmap and design an application that connects your brand with your customer base successfully. Done right, your mobile app can reinforce brand presence, increase conversion rate and augment profit margins eventually.

Author Bio:

Developing an eCommerce Mobile App AuthorHaley is a content creator at Avada Commerce. When not working and learning eCommerce trends, she gets hung up on travel adventures, food tasting, and books.

As growing up, she wants to read, learn and experience more and more up-to-date things to adapt herself to this ever-changing world.

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