Cost to Build an E-Commerce Mobile App: Its Features, Types, Tips, & Tech Stack

When it comes to determining the cost to build an e-commerce mobile app – keep in mind that various factors go into the calculation. Depending upon the app’s complexity, the app’s average cost can start anywhere from $20,000 to $25,000+ and can go beyond $50,000+. But that’s not all! 

However, before you make this decision to invest thousands of dollars in e-commerce app development, you must be curious to know whether investing in the e-commerce app is still worth it.

Let’s take an example!

You might plan to buy a beach dress. 

So which platform do you prefer to buy a dress? Do you immediately fall for a certain platform? 

Obviously no! You never settle for 1 or 2 options!

In fact, in such cases, you must ask for some suggestions. This is where we can recognize the need for new e-commerce platforms in the market that can offer the best deals or shopping options. 

According to the reports, user penetration will reach 53.9% in 2024, and around 2.77 billion people are expected to shop online by 2025.

If you’re an entrepreneur and looking for a great business opportunity then developing an e-commerce mobile app will be a rewarding option. But this would require you to hire a mobile app development company to follow the right steps to make your e-commerce business a huge success. 

Did you that there’s a strong prediction that the e-commerce market value will reach $1.9 trillion by 2025? Take over this opportunity by hiring e-commerce mobile app developers in USA to customize the app and drive revenue growth. 

Top Reasons Why You Should Invest In E-commerce App Development

E-commerce is a huge market where there’s always room for aspiring investors, offering a unique approach to online shopping. Still, we have listed down 3 major reasons why it’s high time to migrate your retail business to the digital platform…

1. Increase Smartphone Users

Did you know that there are over 7 billion smartphone users and at least 33% of the population worldwide are dedicatedly shopping online to meet their needs which is increasing by almost 5-7% every year? 

The increasing number of active smartphone users is one of the serious reasons to invest in creating an e-commerce app. A well-developed e-commerce app ensures that your services are easily accessible to a vast audience and allows potential customers to browse, shop, and make purchases without any hassle. 

2. Surging Online Shopping Demand

By choice or by force, 2020 has people turned to online platforms to buy stuff with all convenience. Since then, the demand for online shopping has witnessed and global e-commerce revenue is expected to surpass $5.5 trillion by 2027. 

This is where ensuring your app’s accessibility anywhere, anytime enables you to meet the growing consumer’s expectations for seamless and efficient online shopping experiences. 

3. Fastest Growing Market

Investing in the ecommerce app enables to you become a part of this thriving market. Your app can provide you with an additional channel for sales and allow businesses to reach a broader market section and capitalize on it. 

To build an e-commerce mobile app, you need to hire a mobile app developer who can help you transform your business journey. The success of the app majorly depends upon its convenience and accessibility which lead to customer engagement and ensure repeat business. 

Hopefully, the above-stated reasons are enough to influence you to invest in e-commerce app development. But one such question that how much it costs to build an e-commerce mobile app will keep bothering you. For that, you need to first decide what type of e-commerce app you want to develop and where to hire a mobile app development company in the USA.

What Type of E-commerce Mobile App You Need To Develop?

E-commerce apps have revolutionized the way people buy and sell products. There’s a different business model to cater to varying types of e-commerce needs. So depending on your business requirements, decide what type of e-commerce business app you would prefer to develop.

• Business-To-Business (B2B) Ecommerce App: Facilitating transactions between businesses and catering to the specific needs of the companies like offering bulk purchasing and pricing. For example Amazon Business or Quill.

• Business-To-Customers (B2C) E-commerce App: With this app type, direct sales are conducted between businesses and customers. Popular examples of B2C are Amazon, Domino, and more.

• Customer-To-Business (C2B) Ecommerce App: These mobile app types enable customers to offer products and services to businesses. For example, GitHub is a platform where developers collaborate or Shutterstock.

• Customer-To-Customer (C2C) Ecommerce App: These apps facilitate transactions between consumers such as OLX or eBay. 

Depending upon your business requirements, you can choose the app type. However, the success of your e-commerce app depends upon the features and functionalities you choose to integrate into the app.

72% of ecommerce sales are projected to come from a mobile device by 2025

Are you ready to make a profit on that? Let Xicom helps you turn this opportunity into reality by customizing top-notch ecommerce mobile app with all latest features.

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Must-Have Features To Create E-commerce Mobile App

When it comes to developing an e-commerce app for a startup with a limited budget, then you can consider implementing these general features in your e-commerce app for a hassle-free shopping experience and expanding your business reach.

• User Registration: Allow users to sign up for an app using their email ID or mobile number. Make sure you keep the signup process simple, easy, and quick for the users. 
• UI/UX Design: An engaging and user-friendly app interface helps with easy navigation and lets them swiftly find the product.
• Product Browsing: Allows consumers to use smart search and filter options to easily browse and find products by brand name, category, prices, and more.
• Product Pages: Make sure each product listed on the app has a detailed description along with high-quality images, specifications, and customer ratings and reviews.
• Shopping Cart & Wishlist: Ensure a smooth shopping experience by allowing them to quickly add or remove the products from the cart, view the total amount, and save the product to a wishlist for future purchases. 
• Secure Checkout: Make sure you have a secure payment integration feature in the app that allows users to pay through in-app payment options and conduct secure transactions. 
• Push Notification: Now this could be a perfect marketing tool for businesses so it is worth looking for ecommerce mobile app development services in the USA to make it work smartly. Use it to keep your users engaged with an app and keep them updated with order status, promotions, deals, offers, or reminders for products added to your wishlist.

The average cost to build an e-commerce mobile app with these features ranges from $20,000 to $33,000+ for a single platform. But what if you are competing with full-fledged e-commerce apps like Amazon? This is where you need to look for advanced features to get an edge.

Advanced Features That Can Make Your E-commerce App More Engaging

Apart from these fundamental features, enterprises can consider including some of the high-level features to ensure that their e-commerce app stands out in the market.   

1. Personal Recommendation Engine

Don’t let your app just randomly send the recommendation. By integrating the personal product recommendation engine into your app, you can 100x your business sales. Amazon is one such early adopter of a product recommendation system and that is the reason that is leading the domain.

Did you know that the recommendation systems of Amazon have helped the company increase its sales by 29% today it has integrated recommendations into nearly every part of the purchase. 

2. Using Augmented Reality In E-commerce

Implementing the AR technology in the e-commerce app can help minimize your cart abandonments, minimize order returns, and enable them to make confident decisions. 

IKEA has adopted this technology and has created a huge impact on many industries and ecommerce is no exception.

With the AR feature in the app, users can easily visualize the products virtually and get an idea of how they look exactly. As IKEA deals with furniture, buyers can visualize how would the product look in the place.

3. Integrating Voice Recognition

Voice-controlled devices like Alexa, Siri, or Google Home have brought a huge boom into the ecommerce industry. 

A survey report says that around 98 million people in the US will be using smart speakers in their household in 2024 and 28% of the US and UK population says that they have been using voice assistants daily. 

Most of the major ecommerce platforms have already realized the changing needs of tomorrow and have already integrated voice recognition features. Here you can choose to hire PHP developers in the USA who can customize the coding and enable you to integrate a multi-lingual voice assistant in your app that allows users to communicate in their local language. 

4. 24/7 Support With AI Chatbots

Artificial intelligence-based chatbots can help e-commerce apps increase their revenues at low additional costs and help saving a cost on customer support. Based on survey reports, AI-based chatbots can handle thousands of queries coming from different sources, in minutes.

 

Following this practice in the app can ensure an excellent user experience and assist first-time customers to easily navigate things on the app. 

Implementing these modern features into the e-commerce app will add up to the cost anywhere from $20,000 to $30,000+. But these advanced features can add a competitive edge to your business. 

Top E-commerce Mobile App Development Trends to Consider in 2024

No matter how brilliant an e-commerce app you have developed. Each year, new tech trends enter the industry and blow away things to the next level. So whether you are updating an e-commerce app or considering it to develop from scratch, make sure you are well prepared with these tech trends to match the dynamic steps of the market to stay competitive. 

Here are the top e-commerce trends and technologies that you need to consider in 2024:

1. Social Media Commerce 

In the social media era, e-commerce platforms are more into the trend of social commerce these days. Wondering Why?

The businesses integrated with social media platforms and allow the users to view products in social media apps and enable them to make a direct purchase from there- will help you 10x your business sales. Social Commerce allows users to buy things in one click right at the moment and helps track that without any hassle.

The perfect example you can consider of Amazon advertisements that you see on Instagram or Facebook page. 

2. One Click Purchase

Following this trend will enable us to offer an excellent user experience.  It allows the users to purchase multiple products without having to enter the payment details every time. 

With this tech trend, they can purchase the items in one click. This encourages them to have a better buying experience and allows businesses to generate more revenue. 

3. Big Data Algorithms

With the aggressively increasing number of users growing daily, using big data algorithms is becoming more critical for ecommerce app development. The big data algorithms work like magic and for this, you may need to hire a mobile app development company in Chicago that can take your business sales to the next level.

Let’s learn how it works!

For example, once you search for lunch boxes on Amazon, you will notice that will start predicting and recommending all the related products that you may be interested in buying next. Now you may ask how an app knows what you like.

Well, this is where Big Data algorithms work that track user behavior and make relevant recommendations. 

4. Using Blockchain

Integration of Blockchain technology does not remain limited to the Finance industry. Blockchain is a distributed record of transactions that makes it easier for ecommerce app owners to track assets and record transactions in a business network. 

Using blockchain in your ecommerce app can be a great way to maintain transparency in transactions and order processing. 

5. Customer Relation Management (CRM) 

CRMs are the most integral part of your ecommerce app as it is a great way to manage the relationship and interaction between customers and potential customers. 

The simple aim of CRM is to improve the relationship of the business. It helps in enhancing profitability and streamlining processes and also stay connected to the customers. Most importantly, it is majorly used to analyze customers’ data and enable businesses to make informed decisions. 

Surely, such advanced features and tech trends are tempting to incorporate into the ecommerce app, but budget is always a major constraint for businesses. So how much does it cost to build an e-commerce mobile app? Let’s evaluate the factors that influence the overall ecommerce app development cost.

5 Factors That Affect The Overall Ecommerce App Development Cost

Looking for the answer to the question that how much does it cost to build an e-commerce mobile app? Still, confused with the multiple answers received from various mobile app development companies in San Francisco? If yes, then here you need to understand what exactly influences the app development cost and how to set the right budget for your app…

Let’s understand 5 main factors that influence the overall e-commerce app development cost:

1. Complexity of the App and Its Size

The complexity of the app and its size are some of the major budget-affecting factors. The simple online e-commerce app store with easy and simple UI/UX design costs you less in comparison to the multi-market store with multiple screens and complex backend requirements. 

Let’s make it simple to understand by breaking it down into categories…

Cost Estimation Based on Complexity Levels

Complexity Level	Estimated Cost Range	Description
Simple App	$20,000 – $30,000	Basic functionality such as user login, product catalog, product details, shopping cart, checkout, and payment gateway integration.
Mid-Level App	$25,000 – $37,000	Additional features like user profiles, reviews and ratings, wish lists, push notifications, basic analytics, and an admin panel.
Complex App	$50,000 – $100,000+	Advanced features include AI-based product recommendations, advanced analytics, multiple payment gateways, custom animations, multi-language support, real-time chat support, and extensive third-party integrations.

Breakdown of E-commerce App Development Costs

Component	Simple App	Mid-Level App	Complex App
Design	$5,000 – $10,000	$7,000 – $12,000	$20,000 – $30,000
Development	$10,000 – $15,000	$15,000 – $20,000	$30,000 – $50,000
Testing	$2,000 – $5,000	$5,000 – $10,000	$10,000 – $20,000
Maintenance (Annual)	$3,000 – $10,000	$10,000 – $20,000	$10,000 – $20,000

2. Choice of Operating Platform

Developing native apps for multiple platforms including iOS or Android and ensuring their compatibility with various devices (Smartphones and Tablets), will be an expensive deal.

Wondering how and why?

Let’s take an example, the average cost to hire an Android app developer in USA is from $50 to $75 per hour and if it takes 700 – 900 hours in development then the average app development cost would come around $20,000 to $25,000+.

So if you’re looking for an app supporting both iOS, Android, and Windows, then hiring a Flutter app developer in the USA will be a worthy choice. Using a single code, they build an e-commerce app that runs on multiple platforms and can save up to 40% cost. 

3. App Features and Functionalities

Undoubtedly, the features and functionalities of your app are the heart and soul. There are several features and functionalities that you can consider integrating into the app. But the higher the number of features you choose to add to the app, the higher the app development cost will be.

So the best way to save on it is to prioritize the features that you want to include in the MVP solution. 

4. Maintenance Cost 

The app development cost has not yet ended with the coding. To keep your ecommerce mobile app maintained and running smoothly, you need to hire mobile app developers in the US. They will provide support and maintenance services to keep your app upgraded with the latest app versions. The average cost of app maintenance takes up to 25% of the total cost.

5. The App Development Team Structure and Location

Whether you opt to build your app in-house or via an external app development company, the team composition, size, and expertise of the development team have a direct impact on project cost. 

To create an ecommerce app like Amazon, you need at least 6 to 7 frontend and backend developers, UI/UX designers, app testers, project managers, and more that can handle the project complexity.

The average cost to hire a team of app developers in the US would range from $50 to $75+ per hour which can go high and low depending upon the expertise, experience, and skills. 

In a nutshell, depending upon such factors, the average cost to build an e-commerce app would range between $20,000 to $47,000+. Moreover, depending upon such factors, it can jump beyond $50,000+.

The global ecommerce market is expected to reach $6.4 trillion by 2024!

Don’t miss out on your share of this booming market and get ready to partner with Xicom to build a feature-rich e-commerce mobile app tailored to your business needs.

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How Much Does It Cost To Build an E-commerce Mobile App?

Finally, we have reached the most asked question how much does it cost to build an e-commerce mobile app? Well, till now, you have already gathered so much information, but for any entrepreneur, this is the crucial stage as they have to estimate the budget, plan the expenses, and figure out the ways to save on overall cost. 

For e-commerce mobile app development cost, it is a little complicated to estimate the exact app development cost. 

The app prices can be greatly influenced by the goals and requirements of the businesses. The number of features, UI/UX design, mobile app complexity, and more. 

So if it comes to evaluating the common business requirements of migrating their retail store to an e-commerce platform and considering developing an app with the basic features, then the average cost will range from $15,000 to $20,000+. However, mid to advanced-level app versions can start anywhere from $27,000+ to $45,000+.

These are the rough estimations which can be lower than $15,000 and can be higher than $45,000. So here we can suggest getting your app idea to experts by booking a free consultation slot and getting real project development estimations from the experts. 

How Does Xicom Help You Build an Exceptional E-commerce App?

For an ecommerce mobile app development, one should choose a leading mobile app development company in Los Angeles with years of experience, in-house app developers with the right expertise, and an engaging portfolio. 

Though there are several app development companies offering ecommerce app development services in the US Xicom Technologies can be your one-stand-alone platform to meet all your ecommerce app development needs. 

For us, our clients are our priority, therefore we strive to analyze their requirements and business roadblocks to accordingly customize the e-commerce app development strategy that drives success.

Apart from here are the reasons why Xicom will be the best choice for developing an ecommerce app:

• Award-winning and ISO-9001-2000 certified company
• 20+ Years of industry experience with 98% client retention rate
• Established a track record of 4500+ project delivery to 1500+ clients over 109+ countries
• Following the agile development method and maintaining consistent transparency
• 100% bug-free coding with 90% on-time project delivery commitment
• Handling global client base and holding ecommerce domain expert knowledge

Conclusion

The Ecommerce app development industry is at the boom without showing any sign of going down. If you are also looking to become a part of this thriving industry, then make sure you are entering with a unique approach that makes you stand apart in the market competition. 

Apart, e-commerce mobile app development demands extensive knowledge, an understanding of the market, and a target audience to emerge with a hight appealing interface that can drive higher downloads and encourage users to shop more. 

On these grounds, it is worth hiring a mobile app development company in Dallas that can help you reach your target audience and expand your customer base. After evaluating your needs and business challenges, they will help you build an app that perfectly aligns with your business goals. 

For more details, you can drop a query below or contact us!

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