How to Create an eCommerce App & Website like Amazon & Flipkart

This is the Digital era of the Market in which we live. Especially after this Pandemic, we have witnessed an enormous hike in the usage of E-commerce apps as most of the physical places were not fully opened and safe for purchasing. It’s not that the pandemic gave a boost to its existence, it was already a growing substance for buyers, but we can definitely say that it is about to become a new normal after the pandemic.

Many local vendors running their shops like grocery stores, readymade garments, beauty products etc., have started taking orders online and offering home delivery. Hence, they now realized the gem, an eCommerce app or website. Mobile is a handy gadget for every person on earth; the mobile app is a pocket supermarket for buyers.

The question is, how many new vendors who want to enter the E-commerce business know about how to build an E-commerce mobile app. Let’s discuss here how to get it done inch by inch, step by step.

Things to take care while start building eCommerce Mobile App

Market Research is the Key to start:

The first and foremost step is to gather all the needed information and understand it better. Information is the king before you start any such project. Before you start developing your e-commerce app, you must be clear about few things in your mind

Product or Service to sell

It’s very important that you are clear with what you want to sell, which product or service, which category they belong to, and why you want to sell that product or service only over other options. It will explain why you can be one of the best and what difference you can offer to the market.

Target Market to serve

Once you are clear on what to offer, you must be clear about whom to offer. Your target market must be finalized in your mind, giving you an idea of where to start your first sale and how long you can survive, and how much you can scale your business.

Need Segment of consumer you will satisfy

Once you are done with What and Whom to serve, you must consider the purpose of selling through your mobile app. Here you have to get a crystal clear picture of which of the needs of your target market is not satisfied yet or not fully satisfied, which you can. By knowing this, you can get an idea of the feasibility of the mobile app you are building.

Range of Products to offer: Broad or Narrow

Scaling businesses with unknown capacity is always a risk to the early decline or failed stage of the newly launched app. Before starting, you must know how many product categories and product lines you can handle at your current stage of the business cycle and carefully choose the range or product to offer in the Introduction stage.

Competitor analysis

Survival of your new venture, whether its an app, depends on how many competitive advantages you have but one more important thing than how long these competitive advantages can last. The day your competitive advantage finishes your business also finishes. You must carefully study your close competitors, what kind of product range they are offering, what kind of features they are offering in their apps, and the features customers prefer over other apps. This can help you decide what kind of features you must include or exclude from your app while developing it.

Find out your Unique Selling Point to stay in the competition.

Once you are done with your thorough competition analysis, you must list out your point of parity and point of difference and decide the value propositions of your mobile app to stay alive in your competition. Point of parity will give you an idea of a number of the features your competitors are providing are basic and must be added in your app to be equivalent to them. Point of Difference will guide you on what your competitors are missing, which makes them fail to meet the customer expectation at a certain level, and try to develop such features to create your Unique Selling Point. A combination of both of these will give you the best value proposition.

Steps to Follow while building an eCommerce Mobile App

Clear Idea is King

There is a big myth that building a successful app is all about great Coding, but the truth is there must be a great and clear idea behind creating an app. A great idea can take you to the greatest result along hiring mobile app development company can make it possible. So getting a clear idea of what you want to develop and why is very much necessary while you start; everything else then follows.

List out all Features you need in your app

While collecting information during your market research, you must collect all the information regarding market trends, needs and wants, competitors and their Point of parity and Point of Differentiation and based on that you have to decide a list of features you want to add to your app that will make it one of the best in the competitive category as well allow it to stay ahead in competition with its unique value propositions.

Some of the most common features of an app you must not miss are:

• Reviews and Ratings – based on which consumers understand and trust your product
• List of Payment options – that helps consumers to make their payment easier with a wide range of payment source
• Push Notification – that keeps consumers updated
• Social Media Integration – consumers, can log in with their social media accounts and share their feedback on social media to become a spokesperson for your app.
• Wishlist –  helps consumers add those products into their wishlist, which they cannot buy now, but they liked the product and are ready to purchase in the future. Wishlist will make their future purchase search easy and quick.

Begin with the Designing process

Design of your app, which is the stepping stone of success of your app as it is directly related to the consumer experience and how seamless their journey will be when they use the app while making a purchase. Before coding gets started, a planned design helps you keep away from unnecessary revisions during the development phase. Your design stage can be fun as well as an involvement-creating activity for your team.

Your design process must pass through four stages.

• Sketching stage
• Wireframe stage
• Mock-Up
• Prototype

Ready to use Templates is an easy way out

Almost all eCommerce apps have the most similarities using ready-to-use templates can help you avoid unnecessary wastage of your resources and efforts. These templates are mostly available with ready-to-use source code which you can modify as per your requirements.

Advantages of using Ready-to-use Templates for designing E-commerce app

• Cost savvy
• Fasten-up your development process
• Required very less sized and specialized team
• Zero-Bug Design process

Build the Back-bone – Back end Coding

Finally, you can begin with back-end development and coding activity by choosing backend tools like Php with CodeIgniter or Laravel and PHP Frameworks like React js and Node Js. Backend is the responsible stage for the creation of different APIs, storage and retrieval database, and the bulk of business rules performance.

For building Backend, there are two options you can opt for

• Opt for backend service providers
• Developing custom backend from scratch

Choosing Back-end service providers can be a good option in case you don’t have a well-experienced and qualified team. It helps you in faster development for the quicker launch of your app without the maintenance of any cloud resources and very cost-saving. The only benefit of the custom backend is that it gives you a free-hand to integrate some additional functionalities but can be highly expensive if you are having a limited budget and time-consuming in some cases too.

Finalize the Face – Front end Coding

This is the part of an app that directly interacts with consumers and keeps them engaged if developed in the best way. To make it happen Flawless coding is a must so that the best experience can be shared with users when they use the interface.

Before you start Front end coding you must opt for one of the following:

Launch Beta version for Initial reviews

Beta Launch is the best way to test the usability and UX/UI Design experience of what you have developed and what kind of experience your app is sharing when consumers are using it. Feedbacks you get during this phase helps you improve before the Final Launch.

App Store Optimization for your App

Like SEO works best for websites, ASO also does for an app. It helps you rank your app higher than the competitors based on the Keywords, Description, Category, App reviews, and a number of downloads.

Promotional and Marketing Campaigns

Without marketing activities, consumers will never have a good level of brand recognition to put your application in their decision criteria while making a decision. A good amount of well-written Blogs, making product videos, social media marketing, etc can help you grab a good market.

Launch your Best Shot – Your Mobile App

At last, once you are done with all the above steps you are good to go flying in the sky and launch your app in the Apple App Store and android play store.

Conclusion:

An app is not only a technical task you need a well-designed plan and execution of it with a good team. The market is full of competition and increasing day by day and will be worse in the future. Make sure your app has all those things, which helps it stand tall in a cut-throat competitive market.