How to Create a Shopping App in 9 Steps With Elegant UI/UX

Are you wondering how to create a shopping app like Amazon or Shein?

Want to increase your business ROI by developing an engaging shopping app, then read ahead.

Good retail experience is all about convenience, from start to checkout. You can shop till you drop while swiping your phone while sitting on the couch.

With an estimated lucrative revenue of $710 billion by 2025, a shopping app sounds like a profitable solution.

Source: Statista

Being a top mobile app development company in USA and Canada, we gathered information from our app development consultants about developing an intuitive shopping app.

In this article, we have covered all aspects essential to creating a shopping app like Amazon for your business.

A Glimpse into the Shopping App Statistics

During the Coronavirus Pandemic, the shopping apps saved the day. Several people relied on these shopping apps after the lockdown for their needs, from clothing to accessories.

Customers received everything at their doorstep, added to their convenience, especially with the second wave of the Pandemic looming.

1. Smartphones accounted for 69% of the shopping app visits and 60% of the orders in the United States alone in the year 2022.
2. According to a study conducted by Synchrony, at least 67% of customers have downloaded a shopping app on their phones. Nearly half of these people have shopped using the shopping app.
3. The way people research before they conclude their purchases with an online shopping app has also changed. People now research social media platforms before going to online stores.
4. At least 54% of global shoppers perform virtual window shopping on online shopping sites before they purchase.
5. The conversion rate of 21% is one of the best indicators that your business needs mobile apps for shopping (Forbes).
6. Mobile payments will get more app customers for online shopping apps. According to AlliedMarketResearch, the mobile payments market will reach $4.574 billion by 2023.
7. Shoppers spend more time on the store app than the desktop. It is a positive sign that you need your own store app.

These statistics indicate the growing need for an online shop app solution. If you have decided to go ahead with online shopping app development, read on as a business owner. These points will help you get started with your concept. Next, learn the 9-step process of building a shopping app like Amazon.

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Follow These 9 Steps to Create a Successful Shopping Application

Do you have an idea about how to make a shopping app for your business? Here are all the steps you should follow to understand how to create a custom app with advanced shopping app features.

1. Research the Market

   Pick your niche before you begin creating a shopping app for your business. It would help if you had more than a concept to pick the niche. That’s where app market research helps. You should know the answer to the following question while doing your market research.

   • What are some of the retail online shopping apps that exist in the market?
   • Are they all marketplaces or individual store applications? Do you want a shopping app for a chain of stores
   • What are some of the issues the users of mobile apps face?
   • Are they similar to the Amazon shopping app?
   • What is the USP of the applications that are similar to your concept?
   • Who is the direct user of the app that you plan to build?

   The in-depth market analysis of the shopping app can help you identify the existing gaps. It can also help validate the app. It is equally important to look for a product-market fit for the shopping cart app that you plan to develop.

   To ensure a complete understanding of your competition and opportunities, conduct a SWOT and risk analysis of the shopping app market.

   The deliverables at the end of this step are a validated concept for the shopping app, a defined user market, and the users’ issues.

2. Craft the Mobile Development Strategy

   It’s time to build a strong foundation for creating your own shopping app. This is where you sit and develop the concept. Start with talking about what you want to offer the customers.

   • Are you serving businesses or end customers with the shopping app? There are plenty of app business models for an online shopping app. You can go with B2B, D2C, B2C, or C2C.
   • Do you want the customer to log in while using your app?
   • How do you visualize the shopping app’s first interaction with the customer?
   • How would you like your customer to perceive the mobile app solution?
   • What are some of the integral interactions that you cannot avoid in the mobile app?
   • What are some of the features that you should include in your MVP?

   While crafting the mobile app strategy and branding for the shopping application, you should also define the monetization strategies. While defining monetization strategy, you should know how do free apps make money as well. This will help during the development stage when you create a shopping app.

   App Monetization Strategies	Description
   Subscription/SaaS Platform	The shopping app owners can charge the sellers a certain amount for selling their products on the app or mobile sites.
   In-app Ads	The app owner can increase revenue by advertising other brands or applications on their shopping app
   Sales	Whenever users purchase from the mobile shopping app, the sales will convert into profits or revenue for the business
   Commission	The business owners can charge a certain percentage as commission for every transaction made on the shopping app.

   It would help if you chose a monetization strategy that best fits your retail app development model and approaches.

3. Determine the App Development Approach

   How do you plan to develop the shopping app for the concept? Do you want to go with native app development or cross platform?

   Native App Development

   If you want to develop an iOS or Android-specific shopping app, you can go with native development

   • Native apps will use the platform-specific tech stack to help you swiftly create the mobile application.
   • In this approach, the applications can integrate the native components without compromising the performance

   Cross Platform App Development

   • If you want to develop a shopping app for multiple platforms without impacting interactions or interface design, you can go with cross platform apps.
   • The app logic and codebase will remain the same for the different platforms. Slight modifications might be needed for a platform-specific experience.

   Hybrid Development

   • If you want to avoid spending bandwidth downloading mobile apps, you can go with hybrid apps.
   • They are mobile apps enclosed in web services. You can access these apps on mobile web browsers without downloading them.
   • They act akin to shopping apps but don’t occupy the space. It is way easier to develop solutions.

   App Builders

   • You can use the off-the-shelf mobile app development tools available in the market to develop the mobile shopping app as your need.
   • With drag-n-drop interface and no coding solutions, you can develop apps effortlessly.
   • The pre-defined templates accelerate the app launches. You can easily create an MVP and get it to the market before the competition.

   Development Approach	Tech Stack
   Native App Development	Swift, Objective-C (for iOS apps), Kotlin, Java (For Android apps), IntelliJ IDEA and Android Studio (The development environment)
   Cross Platform App Development	Flutter, Xamarin, React Native
   Hybrid App Development	PhoneGap, HTML5
   App Builders	BuildFire, Genexus

   You can build the entire tech stack to manage your frontend and backend effortlessly. You will need solid technology along the backend for better integration with third-party plugins and sites, account management, and customizations.

4. Choose a Reliable Online Shopping App Development Company

   It is important for you to define a proper mobile app development team structure that supports your native mobile apps or cross-platform development strategy. At this point, you need to decide whether you want to develop the app in-house or outsource. Eventually, you also need to plan the type of outsourcing you would rather go with.

   In-house Team

   You can choose to hire dedicated developers or a team at your site. Depending on the approach chosen, you can build a team of native or cross-platform app developers.

   The pros and cons of building a software development team in-house.

   Advantages of In-house Team	Limitations of In-house Team
   You are in complete control of the project	Expensive as you need to hire the team and plan the infrastructure internally
   Your developers will be working on your project	Can be tedious and time-consuming as you will be core to development.
   Resolve the bottlenecks faster	–

   Freelance Developer

   Based on your approach, you can choose a cross platform developer or a native app creator. You can hire a freelance individual or team for the purpose. You can hire them for a specific time period (an hour or a week, depending on your needs).

   Advantages of Freelance Developers	Limitations of Freelance Developers
   Save money by paying for the period they will work on your native or cross platform app	High risk as the developer may not be always available to meet your needs.
   Accelerate time to deploy the mobile commerce application for your business	There is a good chance they may miss deadlines
   Develop mobile applications for your store on a limited budget	It can cause additional costs and extensive delays in your project.

   Dedicated Team

   You can outsource it to a company providing custom eCommerce development services, depending on your needs. You won’t need to pay their salaries or invest in the infrastructure.

   Advantages of Dedicated Team	Limitations of Dedicated Team
   You can control the project remotely	Contractual development may cause rigidity during development
   Get more visibility into the project and understand the issues	Change in management can cause development issues
   Faster turnaround times	The delivery may not be as seamless as in house
   Better scalability and reliability	–
   Save money on infrastructure and salaries	–
   Exact estimation of time and budget	–

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5. UI/UX Development

   Once you have defined the approach, determined the strategy and put together the tech stack, it is time to work on the user experience strategy.

   The experience includes interaction with the interface, planning the usability, and placement of the elements on the mobile app.

   Before you begin with the design, you should know which is a good app design practice to develop a shopping app. Find the answers to the following questions.

   • How do people use shopping apps?
   • What makes them abandon the shopping cart at the checkout?
   • Are the mobile devices too small for them to enter the details? Is there a possibility of another way to make them input the details?
   • Do one or two-tap apps make a difference in usability? Are they more user-friendly?
   • Would multiple pages and a lot of processes put the user off?
   • Is there scope that the user might not use the app if it has difficult navigation?

   These questions can help you get the low-fidelity prototype closely followed by the high-fidelity prototype to understand the application better.

6. Developing Your Shopping App

   There would be two stages to mobile app development – front-end and back-end development.

   If you are planning a cross platform app development, you can use a single codebase to build the mobile app. However, with native, you need to develop the apps separately for both Apple and Google Play Store.

   The backend development comprises all the communication between the interface and servers. Go through the following process to understand the mobile app development process steps.

   • Develop the authentication and security for your mobile app
   • Build the account and admin communication
   • Database management and communication
   • Customization of the app for online stores and third-party integration
   • Plan and integrate the payment gateway best suited for the application

   A smooth backend assures seamless communication.

   By applying advanced eCommerce development technologies, we have developed several ecommerce solutions for our clients. Check out some of our recent ecommerce projects.

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7. Testing, Deployment, and Feedback

   It is essential to serve your smartphone users high-quality and performing mobile applications that can encourage customers to stay a bit longer on your mobile application.

   Quality, load, and functionality testing are pivotal in ensuring quality before you roll out the applications to the respective app stores. Testing the application will take a long while as you must provide all the elements are appropriately tested for app speed, quality, and performance.

   You need to conduct the following tests to make sure your app is up to quality.

   • Functional testing
   • Speed testing
   • Usability testing
   • Performance and load testing
   • Security testing

   Before you deploy the app to the store, understand how to publish the Android app on Play Store and complete app store optimization. This includes the following

   • Writing the title and description that helps explain the application
   • Include keywords that are in sync with the user’s search
   • Add high-definition screenshots that can give a clearer view of the mobile app
   • Take note of the mobile store for app guidelines and the best practices to launch the app.

   Once you have deployed the application to the store, you will get feedback from real users. It would help if you incorporated this feedback to keep improving your application and enhancing the experience.

8. Marketing Strategies for Promotion

   If your app is not visible, there may not be an increase in downloads that can help with conversions and profits. As a result, the immediate step is to launch marketing campaigns that you believe will work towards getting visibility.

   You must have planned your pre-launch, launch, and post-launch marketing strategies. It is time to execute the campaigns. As soon as you have finished coding and a few weeks before the launch, you can start with your pre-launch teasers and campaigns.

   Use a 360-degree marketing strategy for better visibility. You can use the offline stores for marketing the mobile app after the launch.

9. Maintenance and Support

   After the launch of the app, your outsourcing company might provide you with a maintenance package for the first few days. They will take care of all the needs posed by your app. you can also extend the package as the company needs.

   Before transferring the shopping app to you, the mobile app development company will ensure your employees are thoroughly trained and understand what is needed.

Following these steps perfectly will get a suitable app solution that meets your end user’s requirements. It is essential to estimate the cost of a shopping app at the planning stage itself. Here, we will discuss the approximate cost of developing an online store app.

How Much Does It Cost to Develop a Shopping App?

However, the actual cost of custom application development depends on several factors- tech stack, complexity, features, and locations.

Factors That Determine the Cost of Shopping App Development

We will take a look at the cost of developing a shopping app for the different factors- complexity, development approach, and location.

Development Approach Based Shopping App Development

Check the different app development approaches depending upon the app development types.

1. Shopping App Cost for Android Platform

If you are planning the native Android app development for the shopping cart solution, here is your development cost.

Elements of Android App Development	Cost
Wireframe Design	$1000 – $2500
UI/td>	$1000 – $17500
UX	$1000 – $16,000
Development	$12,000 – $50,000
Testing & Deployment	$800 – $35000
App Store License	$25 for Registration
Updates and Maintenance	15% of the app cost

2. Shopping App Cost for iOS Platform

If you are planning the native iOS app development for the shopping cart solution, here is what your development cost would be.

Elements of iOS App Development	Cost
Wireframe Design	$700-$2500
UI Costs	$1000 -$5000
UX	$2k-$10k
Development	$10k – $800k
App Store License	$99 for registration
Updates and Maintenance	15% of the app cost

Based on App Complexity

The app’s complexity is defined by the features added to the development. Here we will take you through the app development cost based on the added features.

Note: The per hour developer rate is considered $35 for calculating the prices.

Country-wise Shopping App Development Cost

The mobile shopping application development cost differs for different countries. Hiring a developer in the US may be expensive, whereas the labor is cheap in Asian markets. Here, we have considered the development costs for the different countries.

Now that we have an approximate estimate of developing a basic vs advanced application, let’s know the features that are needed to fix the online shopping app.

Must-have Features to Add to Your Shopping App

These are the must-have features for your shopping app. This will help develop the basic application.

You might want to enhance the experience of the mobile app user. Add a few more features that can enhance the user’s usability. Like, check an example of the Shein app feature.

Advanced Features of Online Shopping App

Let’s look at the advanced features you should include in your shopping app.

It is important to plan your development well to ensure that these features can be used seamlessly without friction, Know what tech stack can help you manage mobile commerce development effortlessly.

What Tech Stack to Use for Shopping Mobile Development?

The technology stack is an important consideration for mobile app developers planning to create an online shopping app solution for the end users.

The frontend and backend technologies are crucial as they help enhance the performance of the mobile application.

Frontend Technologies Required to Build a Shopping App

The interface is the face of the mobile app. users can interact with the app through this screen. Using the apt tech stack to develop the mobile commerce solution is crucial.

The design team can use the Flutter UI toolkit or React Native to build the user interfaces. To develop the interface, they will also use the material design or Apple design guidelines and the IDE for the specific operating system to create the interface.

In some cases, the developers can use leading technologies such as Angular or Vue to develop the interface.

Backend Technology Required to Build a Shopping App

The scripting language again depends on the operating system and app development approach.

Web Server

In most cases, the user uses the Apache or Nginx server to improve the application’s performance. However, some developers can use the IDE-specific engine to run the application.

APIs

It would help to choose the important APIs for your mobile shopping app. For example, you might want to integrate Stripe for payments. Similarly, you might want to use CRM integration for better customer nurturing.

Databases

Choosing the right database management software can help you store, retrieve and analyze the data better.

• MySQL
• MongoDB
• Firebase
• PostgreSQL

These are some database management solutions you can consider when making a shopping app.

It’s clear by now how to create an online shopping app that will maximize downloads. It’s time to look at some of the booming online shopping apps.

Best Shopping Apps to Get Inspired From

Check out the online shopping apps listed here to know why they stand out.

Apps	App Features	Reviews (Play Store)
Zara	Filter through selections to find the product you need AR technology: Point your app towards the mannequin or clothing and get complete information Try out shoes and sneakers on the online shopping app to check its fit.	4.8 (3,45,000 Reviews)
Wish	Deal Dash: Offers additional discounts for the day Single Tap Checkouts: Easy checkouts that make adding to cart and purchasing items easy	4.7 (1.42 Billion Reviews)
Amazon	Recommendations: Get suggestions based on past purchases and shopping habits Filters: Easy to filter our irrelevant items Product category search: Look for a product category or products that you want to purchase	4.6 (32,00,000 Reviews)
Adidas	Personalize your sneakers Alerts on new sales Stories that inspire your purchases	4.8 (3,77,000 Reviews)
Mango	Build your wishlist Get sales related alerts Find the physical stores near you	4.7 (59.2 T Reviews)
Target	Target Circle: Know your community and learn more about the day’s rewards Barcode Scanner: Scan the barcodes to know the deal for the day, pricing, and other details	4.2 (2.87,000 Reviews)

Till now, you have learned about the process, cost, and features of a shopping app. If you still have doubts about shopping app development, check the following FAQs section.

Develop an Amazon-like App for Your Business

If you are planning to develop an app like Amazon, you should follow the step-by-step guide. Plan your niche, store type, and business model before going further. You should eventually plan the features, know the monetization strategy and define the marketing plan to gain visibility.

Once your plan is defined, you should determine the features and chalk out an estimated budget to deliver the application.

For a smooth outcome, you should do your research to find reputed ecommerce development companies and then choose a reliable partner . At Space-O Technologies, we have delivered more than 4400 mobile app solutions. We have deployed highly capable shopping cart solutions that have maximized revenues for retail businesses.

If you want a capable tech partner with expertise in the retail niche, connect with us by filling out our contact us form. Our team will contact you to understand your requirements and plan your development.