How to create an application for an online store. TOP 8 recommendations.

E-commerce is gaining momentum, more and more users are moving from the desktop to their smartphone. And here the question arises, which is better: a responsive website, PWA or a full-fledged application.

Each option has its pros and cons. In most cases, time and money costs play a role. The Henceforth Solutions team, of course, is in favor of developing the application and there are certain reasons for this:

Personalized offersYour brand is always on the client's phone screenIncreased profitHigh retentionBrand recognitionInvolvementIncrease in the average check, etc.

As you can see, there are a lot of advantages. But how to create an application for an online store, what should you pay attention to? Let's figure it out.

It is necessary to determine what functionality your application should have.
It depends on:

industriesProducttarget audiencebudget

Do not forget about the standard functions for customization: 

User registrationCatalogBasketPayment and delivery systemSearch lineUser support 

In addition to standard settings, you need to add features that will convince the consumer to make a purchase.

TOP 8 recommendations for the future Ozone.

Personal recommendations.
Great feature for an up-village. We collect information about the buyer, his preferences, recommend products, stimulate purchases.

 

Push notifications. 

This is one of the important advantages of mobile applications, for example, PWA cannot send such notifications. New promotions, offers, stock notifications. In this case, the user can independently adjust the frequency of receipt or completely refuse it. So in the Ecommerce application we developed, there are the following types of notifications: when subscribing to a product when it becomes available, when subscribing to categories, when updating the assortment, when changing the status of an order, you can also send personal offers manually. 

Wishlist (Favorites).
This is a necessary element. The user liked the product - added it to favorites, out of stock - also put a heart. The favorites list helps to prepare personalized offers. 
360 product overview.
Allows you to see the goods from all sides and get the effect of full presence. 
Chatbots
Give quick prompt response to most questions. However, if necessary, it is possible to switch communication to a living person.  
AR/VR technologies.

These areas are gaining momentum, many representatives of e-commerce are implementing them. When choosing a piece of furniture, it is important to imagine how it will look live, next to your wall, or on a table, or how sneakers will look. So NIKE has been using AR/VR for a long time. This makes the choice easier.

Search by picture. 

An important feature, not all online stores have upgraded it - this is a great growth point. By the way, Wildberries already has it, but it does not work 100%.

Barcode scanning. 

A very useful thing if you have a traditional store. So being in a retail outlet, the buyer can scan the barcode and get all the information about the product. The 7MD store, for example, has this feature. 

We recommend using these features, but this does not mean that all of them must be in your online store without fail. Do not forget about the first stage, where you evaluate your target audience, analyze the market and evaluate your budget.

Application type

In the next step, you need to decide on the type of application:  

Constructor - a very simple and cheap way, you assemble the application as a drag & drop constructor. There are many disadvantages here: the same type of design, incomprehensible code, the lack of custom solutions. Sometimes this method is used as a demand test for an application. 
Native development : the case when the application is developed specifically for a specific platform: IOS / Android, but this is of course expensive. However, your application will be ideally suited to a particular site and work much faster.

The main disadvantages of this approach: the development of 2 applications instead of one, it's like buying 2 apartments instead of one, which entails large time and money costs. Also you need to maintain and update 2 apps. And it's not a fact that all features available for Android will work for IOS and vice versa. Costs are at least 40% higher.
Core tools : Kotlin or Java for Android app and Swift or Objective-C for iOS. 

Cross-platform approach . Less expensive method, allows you to write one code and publish the application on different platforms. Accordingly, they are easier to maintain. Core tools : React Native, Xamarin, Flutter, Ionic
4. Hybrid apps are a mix of PWA and app. Suitable for startups and small businesses. Core Tools : Apache Cordova; Ionic

As for our choice, most often we use a cross-platform approach - the optimal combination of "price-quality"

How much does an application for an online store cost

And of course, a logical question arises: How much does it cost to develop an application for an online store. This is not secret information at all, however, there is no definite answer here. It all depends on the functions that you need, the timing.
We will develop the simplest application from 500 thousand rubles or more. In any case, a detailed technical specification and a clear understanding of what we want to get is necessary. You can
get a free consultation here .