M-Commerce App Development Guide: Trends, Cost, and Tips for 2021

“An m-commerce app or a business site?” — this is one of the most challenging issues every store owner faces. Moreover, it is vital from the time e-commerce gathered pace in 2005 till today.

Thus, many companies misestimate the importance of m-commerce applications and lose a chance to optimize workflow and find new ways to grow their profits. So, it’s an excellent time to develop a competitive m-сommerce app and use it. However, building such an app, you should be well-educated about the tech stack. Our materials will assist you in the e-commerce latest technologies, development, and updates.

Benefits of m-Commerce App Creation

Let’s turn to the statistical data: according to the essential m-commerce stats, 80% of the customers use their mobile apps in the shops principally for informative purposes, sometimes purchasing online. Moreover, 79% of the customers bought at least one product in the last 6 months through smartphone apps.

Thus, customers use m-commerce apps more than desktop ones, so business proprietors should care about their own m-commerce app development. Furthermore, online shopping stimulates impulse buying because of its speed and comfort.

M-commerce app development would also be beneficial for your business. According to Google surveys, 61% of customers will terminate their transaction if the resource doesn’t seem mobile-friendly. In this case, the app that works on the device smoothly will be the best solution for this problem.

Mobile Commerce Trends in 2021

Let’s look through the most recent trends in e-commerce app building.

Augmented Reality Makes Lives Better

The AR was created in 2017, but today it gains popularity in almost all areas of daily routine. Thus, Gartner forecasted in 2019 that the number of consumers purchasing with the help of AR would increase to 100 million by 2020. And nowadays, this rate steadily rises due to the pandemic issue.

This way, your e-commerce app containing the AR elements will be exceptional because many people desire to know how the purchased product will look in their interiors. Unfortunately, there are not so many software development companies that implement AR into their solutions. However, the situation is about to change.

Chatbots

If you build a chatbot, the customers can obtain support 24/7. Moreover, the average mobile user prefers communicating with brands through messengers (68%). That’s why many well-known e-commerce companies (like Spotify or Pizza Hut) built chatbots.

On top of it, using ML and AI, the bot can quickly find out the clients’ data and predict their next question, etc. Thus, it helps create a convenient shopping experience for every customer.

One-Click Purchasing

Until autumn 2017, Amazon had the only patent on such technology. After its expiration, many one-click payment solutions have been released on the marketplaces.

This technology facilitates commerce app use because the customers don’t need to make multiple repetitive choices to accomplish the transaction. So, the amount of impulsive mobile payments is about to boost.

Shopping personalization

The companies strive to study users’ data from their brand resources, such as messengers or social networks. It will help them properly choose the methods of cooperation with users: from sending customized emails based on the user’s last shopping to AI use, which will forecast future purchases.

This commerce technology is trendy today: in 2021, more than 72% of customers claimed that they would rather have shopping in stores that provide this technology.

Omnichannel Shopping Experience

2021 starts as a year for businesses to join together different trading channels. Businesses use mobile apps, digital and physical shops. A variety of channels makes a combined shopping presence for consumers.

It is crucial to increase concurrency, and omnichannel shopping can help with it. So, if you want to generate your business, search for new customers, and hold back the existing ones, you should unify all your business channels providing a necessary experience to them.

Geopositioning

This trend assists in the promotion of the goods in dependence on user location. Thanks to geofencing use, famous brands obtained a minimum of 18% sales growth. So, what is the action mechanism of this technology?

You can set a requirement such as “within the range of 700 meters of malls”, and your app will obtain user buying intent and other benefits. It is possible due to the GPS or Wi-Fi networks that track the user’s location, sending them unique offerings while found in the pointed zone. Thus, you can also gather the customer’s data to estimate time spent in your store, etc.

Big Data

The number of customers is steadily rising (e.g., by the second half of 2021, Amazon has more than 400 million users), and big data tools help process large piles of information. Moreover, it allows sellers to obtain insights or count a reasonable product cost considering the prices of concurrents.

Following the latest e-commerce tendencies, big data can assist you in filling your channel and increasing your sales.

Mobile Commerce Design that Converts

A mobile app interface is created to turn site viewers into reliable clients. So, what should you do to gain this purpose?

Make Your App Look Safer

The users entrust you with not only their data but also their money. Your task is not to disappoint their expectations. That’s why you should work on your app interface. If it looks safe (and it really is), the users may like it, and the conversion rates will increase.

Some manageable approaches to gain it:

• To achieve the feeling of the user’s psychological comfort, you can use lock signs and such words as “coded,” “protected,” etc.
• The buttons should contain text instructions on where to tap to be redirected to necessary pages. The mentioned instructions should be comprehensive.
• You should add security trust marks from such providers as SLL Value, GeoTrust, or Comodo. With it, the degree of belief in your app will increase.

Implement Touch Gestures to Zoom in Product Pictures

According to a Baymard University investigation, most mobile consumers utilize pinching movements to investigate products by zooming.

Thus, it is essential to implement in your mobile commerce application. This function can increase its popularity.

What else do you need to provide it?

• The product pic should be large and HD.
• Only half of the applications that enable zooming gestures tell their customers about it; that’s why not so many people can use it. Thus, demonstrate this function to the customers in case you added it.

Activate the Save Option for Goods From Your Cart

As per Baymard’s study, about 68% of potential customers throw up their online shopping carts. There are many reasons for this problem, though it’s a pity to lose customers who are not satisfied by the save options of your online cart.

So, how to prevent such an unpleasant situation? First, your app interface should contain automatic cart emptying and the possibility to save cart content and buy it later. Adding the permanent cart option allows your customers to save the shopping process and continue it whenever they want.

Speed up a Checkout Procedure

The most nerve-wracking part of online purchases is the checkout process. According to the Baymard report, about 70% of cart abandonment happens because of payment inconveniences (e.g., demand to create a new account before purchase).

So, you can see that the accessible checkout function should be contained in your m-commerce application. The other ways to solve this problem:

• Your consumers should have a choice whether they want to sign up during the checkout operation process or not.
• The customers should see the number of steps (and a current one) until the end of the shopping. You can display a visual progress bar for this purpose.
• Learn and use the pros of advanced web applications to facilitate the conversation with the customer.

Allow Automatic Suggestions Running

If you have been frustrated because of a mistake made in the item’s name, you can understand your customers facing a similar problem. In this case, auto-suggestions can assist them in speeding up the purchasing procedure and concentrating more on its final results.

You can also implement to your app such features as address lookup or payment card autodetection, leading to a conversion rate increase.

Your app UI should also include the function of mistakes correction. This way, the users will obtain immediate feedback during the typing.

Make a Visible Search Bar

The statistical resources note that sometimes the searches that occupy 10% of the traffic lead to 40% of a company’s total profits. That’s why the search bar is one of the vital features for your m-commerce app because customers always look for items before their purchase.

The Baymard Institute research of the 50 largest e-commerce sites like Gap, UrbanOutfitters, or BestBuy, has revealed their major defect in a poorly created search bar.

You can gain profit from your search bar if you:

• Make it visible.
• Set multi-criterion search filters.
• Make a search suggestion and autocomplete the request.

e-Commerce App Development Cost

Good news for you: a big amount of money shouldn’t be paid for the entire app at once if the company that assists you uses Agile methodology. Thanks to it, the app development procedure is divided into short sprints having the preset costs. Thus, you obtain an entirely viable part of your app at the end of every sprint. You can also learn more about app development cost here.

Cost estimation for a particular project starts with the time calculation for every feature. If the app’s going to have many features, it will require more time. Being based on the long-term development practice and many software companies’ experience, we can point out such estimates of the most time-consuming parts:

• Customer profile with an image, private info, orders, and payment history monitoring. The average time for its development is 35-50 hours.
• The main screen is where the customers can manage the list of products. It takes 30-45 hours on average.
• Product details screen intended for the product pics zoom, and so on. The average time for its development is 20-45 hours.
• Shopping cart, which includes different payment systems implementation. This feature takes 70 to 110 hours on average.

Each building stage should be evaluated separately to obtain the total time estimation for an e-commerce mobile application development.

• iOS/Android (client-side): 200-300 hours.
• Server-side: 130-170 hours.
• Interface development: 120-200 hours.
• Meetings/non-development: 150-250 hours.

So, the entire time is approximately 600-900 hours. And note: you should wisely plan a list of your app features according to your finances, user requirements, and business aims. Now, you should multiply the mobile app price by the hourly wages of the specialists from the chosen country.

Bear in mind that the choice of a reliable software provider is necessary for your e-commerce project; it defines the finances for wages payment and the quality of the product. For example, ordering software development services from an Indian company can be less expensive for you (at about $25/h) than in the US (at about $150); however, you may obtain communication misunderstandings needed to be solved. Hiring American software specialists may bring financial difficulties because their services should be overpaid.

Thus, a growing number of customers choose the optimum relationship between high quality and accessible prices offered by developers from East European countries like Ukraine. There are essential benefits that you may obtain, by cooperating with them, such as:

• A wide range of well-skilled IT experts.
• The responsibility for the orders taken via outsourcing. This way, the engineers earn more, and you obtain your project built at the top level.
• Low hourly rates, which amount to $50 (according to Eastern Europe average prices).

Then, solve your issue concerning service provider choice thoroughly, according to the listed facts.

Conclusion

We briefly represented you with important information as to m-commerce app development. Though, qualified specialists can give you a deeper understanding and provide full support and consulting.

You can discuss every detail of your future project with them and get expert commentaries. Moreover, you’ll obtain an entire estimation of your idea, as well as a final proficient software product.