Mary Yasensky Delivery Manager

• Business

August 2, 2024 5 min read

E-commerce Development Services: How to Build Software Systems and Applications

As the world shifts towards a mobile-centric landscape, e-commerce development services have evolved beyond merely boosting sales. The worldwide e-commerce software market accounted for $8.38 billion in 2023 and is poised to progress at a CAGR of 15% by 2032. Now e-commerce application development services play a crucial role in forging long-term relationships, fostering customer loyalty, and enhancing communication with the audience.

In the US, 35% of consumers already shop exclusively from mobile devices, and it’s projected that by 2024, mobile sales will grow to 43%. This growing trend highlights the need for businesses to adopt an omnichannel approach — to integrate web and mobile platforms. This will help reach a broader geographic and demographic audience, and ultimately, unlock more opportunities.

We’ve been building e-commerce solutions for 13+ years, for both startups and leading international enterprises. We understand how to develop e-commerce apps that help companies grow. In this article, we’ll share our insights.

Choose an approach to e-commerce development services of building software

Our e-commerce application development company has been on the market for over a decade — we’ve learned that the stuff you do before diving into coding is just as important, if not more so.

To date, we’ve delivered dozens of e-commerce solutions, including websites, apps, and marketplaces. Clutch, the leading B2B review and rating platform, featured us among the top providers of e-commerce software development services.

Do research and lay the groundwork

Whether you’re developing a B2C, B2B, or internal-use solution, understanding the market, requirements, and your end user needs will make all the difference. This brings us two factors that have the biggest impact on project cost and speed in e-commerce app development services.

• Learn as much as possible about your customers. Prior to design or coding, gather extensive user knowledge with the help of interviews, client profiles, and customer journey maps (CJMs).
• Define business logic. Clear definition of the company’s needs is vital as well as recognizing your audience’s pain-points — this will allow you to narrow down the project scope and determine the right feature set.

Here’s an example, where an understanding of customer behavior enabled us to create one of the main e-commerce app features.

When we were making the first mobile product for a high-end men’s clothing brand, we started with audience research and a CJM workshop. Surprisingly, we discovered an unexpected shopping pattern: women buying suits for their husbands and sons.

So, our custom e-commerce software development team added a feature that lets users save multiple measurements in their profiles and filter the catalog based on them. It turned out to be a key part of that e-commerce app.

Choose cross-platform or native development

There is no one-fits-all answer to this. Choosing between cross-platform and native e-commerce software solution development, consider scalability, ease of maintenance, and availability of skilled IT experts that will help you determine the right way for your e-commerce project. Let’s review the pros and cons of both options.

Native development involves building applications using a platform’s native language, such as Java for web, C++ for desktop, Kotlin for Android, or Swift for iOS. They ensure higher performance which is essential for graphics-intensive or some gaming apps. Native apps have no restrictions in access to device’s functions, while some cross-platform frameworks have limited access to geofencing, NFC, and other features. But maintaining multiple codebases means a bigger e-commerce developer team and potentially longer time-to-market (TTM).

Cross-platform development allows you to build applications that run on multiple platforms from a single codebase. You can create such a reusable codebase with frameworks like React Native or Flutter. This approach allows companies and engineers to shorten TTM by nearly 30%, and cut support costs. However, if your app is going to be resource-intensive, native options may be a better choice.

To choose the best technology stack, identify your business goals.

A pharmacy chain of three brands approached us with a new mobile app project. Our teams realized that native development would require creating six separate codebases — Android and iOS solutions for each of the three brands.

This would’ve been a nightmare for the client to maintain. Therefore, we decided to create a single codebase for all companies using Flutter. This led to reduced costs and TTM with no quality loss.

What makes your e-commerce app stand out

The e-commerce landscape features many exceptional apps. Modern consumers are used to great UX and now expect top-notch usability, design, and product presentation from every app.

User-facing e-commerce app features

Such features are a part of the interface logic, design, and systems users interact with. The bare minimum a successful app should have is a high-performance interface, streamlined steps to cart, and convenient payment options. But to take it to the next level, you need advanced features like the following.

Loyalty programs. A great way to boost repeat purchases. As an e-commerce software development company, we’ve had a project that illustrated how designing a loyalty program increased loyal users by 79%. Loyal users also accounted for 60% of all revenue.

Delivery optimization. Enhances both internal processes and user experience. For instance, one of our case studies shows how delivery automation and courier tracking increased the company’s deliveries by 20% through optimized route planning and providing customers with a more convenient ordering method.

Operational features and solutions

Operational features are just as important as consumer-facing ones. They take care of your business logic and increase efficiency across the whole company. For example, in this case study, we show how an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system helped KFC to ditch paper-based processes in favor of a digital workflow. This resulted in a productivity boost across multiple departments, and more transparent accounting and time-management.

Other possible operational solutions include:

• Headless product management. Brings software product data to multiple shop-fronts via an API for easy scaling.
• Document and invoice management. Increase productivity, reduce the error rate in accounting, and simplify compliance by keeping track of taxes.
• Warehouse management. Helps account for inventory and improve user-experience by interacting with other software systems and helping remove unavailable items from the digital store-front.
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Assists in monitoring leads and nudging them towards finalizing transactions — this is an invaluable tool for B2C companies selling high-value items like automotive businesses, as well as B2B enterprises.

Providing best e-commerce application development services

If you are looking for a trusted partner to help you create a business-focused e-commerce software and reach new audiences — consider our team. Rated as one of the top e-commerce mobile app development companies, we deliver robust software solutions that meet end-user needs while reducing costs and TTM.

Let’s discuss your project. Tell us about your goals in the form below, and we will promptly get back to you with a proposal.