How to Make a Successful Ecommerce App

Due to the increase in the use of smartphones, more and more customers are adopting online shopping. Consequently, the ecommerce industry is experiencing huge growth in demand for ecommerce websites and apps.  

Motivated by the trend, more and more sellers, big or small, want to sell online and are now going for ecommerce apps. And some sellers who cannot afford to develop their ecommerce app sell through popular ecommerce websites and apps. 

The high demand and fierce competition are also forcing ecommerce developers to undergo continuous learning and transformation. Unless they adapt and offer something better than before, they can’t survive the fierce competition. And they must know the formula for developing a successful app!

So, what parameters make a successful ecommerce app?

Qualities of a Successful Ecommerce App 

If you are a business planning to venture into ecommerce, it’s essential to know how the lead players in this domain have managed to beat the competition. Let’s discuss the significant parameters for app success.   

Great UI/UX

If you don’t understand the importance of a good UI/UX design in apps, you will indeed lag behind your competitors in offering the best ecommerce apps! UI/UX design covers a vast range of features and activities that make the ecommerce app conducive for usage so that the customers love it. 

If you want your customers to choose your app against your numerous competitors’, you cannot ignore offering them ease of using your app and app engagement. These are the two basic elements of a great UI/UX design.  

Personalized Customer Experience is a very crucial ecommerce app requirement in these times of tough competition. Customers should feel valued when they use your app. Also, to convert a user into a customer, you must offer or display to the customer what he wants in the least possible time. So, check on their preferences, use big data analytics to identify data patterns, and leverage AI to suggest products and personalized offers.  

Robust Security

Achieving ecommerce security sounds like a daunting task, and it used to be so around a decade ago. Now, businesses have gained experience and are aware of the common ecommerce security threats and challenges.  

However, if you have not thought about the above already and the above list scares you, you must seek help from professional ecommerce development services. The best ecommerce developers can develop robust ecommerce apps that cannot be tampered with. 

Advanced technology, combined with the right expertise, can deliver an app that assures the user of a safe experience. It protects user data, offers secured authentication, ensures safe payments, and much more to take care of all the safety concerns of the users and sellers. 

Safety in ecommerce apps is mandatory; however, not impossible to achieve. So, make sure you select the right developers! However, despite developing a robust application, ecommerce brands must conduct periodic security audits to ensure that the app complies with security needs. 

Responsiveness

Users these days have a plethora of choices when it comes to devices and software. If your business wants to attract and retain a wide range of customers, it must be developed keeping in mind varied needs. A responsive application responds to user behavior and needs on different devices. 

It is never a wise idea to develop separate applications for different platforms. First is very costly in time and resources to have different applications for different platforms. And secondly, all of these will require regular maintenance. So, responsive cross-platform apps ensure that the users have the flexibility of devices and operating systems while using the app.       

Personalized Offering

Ecommerce players spend considerable budgets on marketing and advertising so that they can attract more and more users. Imagine that you are successful in attracting users to your site. However, users look for their preferred products, and if they can’t find these products easily on your app, they will switch to other apps.

So, it is essential to have a robust search that incorporates the capability of Artificial intelligence and offers personalized experiences to the user. There should be filters that enable the user to search by product features and specifications. Also, the filtering should be multi-level and hierarchical to be able to accommodate a combination of preferences.   

Suggested Reading: A Complete Guide to Ecommerce Development

Scalability

Ecommerce struggle does not end with developing a great app. Though an app is the first step, businesses sustain ecommerce businesses with a lot of effort thereafter. Once you have set up your ecommerce business, you need more and more customers using your app. So, businesses try hard to attract new customers and retain the existing ones. 

For growth and success, we need to accommodate scalability in the app, as the number of users is not predictable. The demand for the app can grow manifold as customers start accepting your app. If the app crashes or performs poorly after the scale increases, the customers will stop using it. 

So, the success of the app is largely dependent on scalability. 

With advanced technology and the vast experience of the best ecommerce developers, scalability is not a problem or challenge. It can be taken care of during the planning stage of app development by using the right resources.  

Robust Content Management  

A very strong app also fails if the content cannot fulfill its purpose. Businesses must hire the top content writing services specializing in ecommerce content management. They ensure that the product descriptions are clear and accurate. 

The ecommerce platform should also make it easy for the sellers to add, modify, and delete their content as per their needs. This is usually possible with the best content management tools integrated with the ecommerce app. 

Features

Many businesses going for app development try to accommodate all possible features that the competitors are using. However, feature-rich ecommerce apps may not always ensure success. 

Even before they start development, it is essential for businesses to make lists of features and classify them into mandatory, desirable, and optional. Remember that the classification depends on the purpose of your ecommerce app. If your ecommerce app is a fashion store, you might require Augmented Reality. But an app selling groceries doesn't need such technology. So, the classification of features should be specific to your business. 

Once you have made such a list, make sure you cover the mandatory and desirable features even in the initial release and leave the optional ones for further updates after a live trial of your app.

How do you make the list of features? As discussed above, what features your customers need in an ecommerce app is a question that cannot be answered precisely. Moreover, the features list can never be exhaustive as the customers’ needs vary, and ecommerce apps are used for a range of products. However, this infographic lists the most desirable features of common and general ecommerce applications for those who don’t have very specific or complex requirements. You can modify it for your needs and purpose.   

Popular Ecommerce Platforms 

Developing an app that takes care of all the above qualities and features is the first step in ecommerce success. Nevertheless, it is the most crucial step! However, it is not easy to make an ecommerce app from scratch that takes care of all your existing needs and those that will come up with changing market requirements. 

So, many businesses prefer developers conversant with popular ecommerce platforms such as BigCommerce, Magento, Shopify, WooCommerce, OpenCart, Prestashop, etc. These platforms are developed with years of research and experience. And so, these can take care of most of your needs. You will obviously require expert developers in these domains to get the best application that meets your requirements. 

However, if your requirements are unique, and you are not sure which platform to choose, you can seek help from the best ecommerce development companies listed on Goodtal.

Wrapping Up!

According to a report by Statista, the retail ecommerce sales figure is forecast to grow by 56 percent over the next years, reaching about 8.1 trillion dollars by 2026.

As you know the main qualities of successful ecommerce businesses, you can work to become one. There are too many things to take care of, including the most crucial aspect, i.e., the app. It is necessary to plan each of these well before executing. 

Don’t forget to evaluate your prospective competitors to assess where they are gaining. Also, identify the areas where some of them failed; this will help you avoid significant mistakes.