Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Successful Shopping App

The ecommerce industry is booming, and mobile shopping trends dominate the overall ecommerce category. 

In fact, 73% of the total ecommerce market share worldwide comes from mobile commerce. 79% of mobile users have purchased something online from a mobile device within the past six months.

But not all mobile shopping experiences are created equally. 85% of people say they prefer mobile apps to mobile sites, and apps convert at a 157% higher rate compared to the mobile web. 

So if you want to maximize the potential of your ecommerce operation, creating a shopping app is the way to go.

This ultimate guide will walk you through the step-by-step process to create a shopping app.

Key takeaways

• Choose between no-code app builders, like Buildfire, custom development, or hybrid solutions based on your budget and timeline.
• Prioritize core features that meet your business’s needs, and push notifications to drive engagement.
• Focus on UX/UI design to minimize friction during the checkout process and reduce cart abandonment.
• Integrate with existing e-commerce plugins like Shopify to streamline inventory management.

How to create a shopping app in 9 steps

Anyone can make a shopping app by following these simple steps:

1. Market Research for Your Online Store
2. Platform and Tech Stack Selection
3. Choose Agency for Shopping App Development
4. Identify Features for Minimum Viable Product
5. List Additional Features for Your Store to Stand Out in the Future
6. Create a Mockup of Your Online Store App
7. Begin Mobile Shopping App Development Process
8. Test Your Shopping App
9. Launch Your Shopping App

By the end of this guide, you’ll have a complete understanding of shopping app development and how to succeed in this space. Let’s dive in!

Step 1 — conduct market research for your online store

Before you start building anything, you need to validate your idea with market research. This step will look a little bit different for everyone, depending on the stage of your business.

There’s a good chance you fall into one of two categories:

• You have an existing ecommerce business and want to add a mobile app
• You’re starting a new business from scratch and want a mobile app on day one

For those of you who are already selling products online, you probably went through the market research step when your business first launched. So some of these tasks may be a bit repetitive. 

Anyone starting a new shopping business from scratch must take the market research step very seriously. Otherwise, you could pour money into a business that the market doesn’t want or need.

Identify customer needs and requirements

The first thing you need to do is identify a target customer profile. Who are you selling to?

Selling to “everyone” is not a recipe for success. You need to narrow things down to an ideal customer profile. Then you need to find out if your products actually meet a market need for your ideal customer. 

Running a SWOT analysis is the best way to start your research.

This process not only looks at your potential customers but it forces you to evaluate your internal initiatives, competitors, and overall market landscape. 

Very few new businesses offer something that’s 100% unique to the market. There’s a good chance there are other online stores and shopping apps selling something that’s almost identical to your offer. 

What makes your product unique to the market? Are you taking a broad product and targeting a niche audience? How will your value proposition stand out from the competition?

These are the types of questions you need to ask yourself and answer with confidence before you can proceed.

Business model

Shopping apps typically fall into three different models:

• B2C — Business selling products directly to consumers.
• B2B — Business selling products to other businesses, sometimes at wholesale.
• C2C — Customers selling to other customers through an online marketplace (like eBay or Etsy).

Which model are you going to use for your shopping app? 

Monetization strategy

Next, you need to determine how you’re going to make money from your shopping app.

Compared to other mobile app categories, shopping apps are fairly straightforward. For B2C and B2B shopping apps, your primary focus should be sales revenue. I would not recommend adding ads to your shopping app, as this can ruin the customer experience.

For C2C shopping apps, you can make money by either charging sellers a fee to use the platform or by taking a commission of each sale. You could potentially charge for promoted products to appear high in the search results as well.

Step 2 — Platform and tech stack selection

Once your idea has market validation, you can start to think about the technical aspects of your shopping app. 

Choose your platform

What platforms are you building for?

• Android — Android apps are available for download on the Google Play Store. Android dominates the global market share, with 71.7% of smartphone users owning an Android device. 
• iOS — iOS apps are available to download on the Apple App Store. It’s a bit more challenging to get your apps approved for the App Store, and iOS controls 53.66% of the OS market share in North America. 

If you’re strictly targeting users in countries outside of North America, it makes more sense to build for Android. But if you’re targeting North American consumers, building for both iOS and Android is the best option. 

This will make your shopping app available to the widest possible audience, and you w

Native app development requires low-level coding specifically for a single operating system.

Development Approach	Pros	Cons
Native App Development	High performance, access to all device features	Time-consuming, expensive, requires separate builds for each OS
Cross-Platform App Development	Cost-effective, single codebase for multiple platforms	May not fully utilize device-specific features

So if you want to create an Android and iOS app through native development, you’d essentially be building two completely different apps—one for each operating system. 

This is the most time-consuming and most expensive path to development, and it’s typically not necessary for basic shopping apps. 

If you want to add complex features like augmented reality built into the app, then you might need to go native. But otherwise, this development path is only necessary for gaming apps, virtual reality apps, or apps that require precision and the highest possible performance. 

Shopping cart

Obviously, you need to have a shopping cart feature and payment gateway to process transactions. 

There are hundreds of options to consider here, like Stripe. In many cases, you can use the same shopping cart solution that you’re using on your website. Otherwise, you can talk to your development agency to see what they recommend.

Shopping Cart Options	Considerations
Stripe	Can be integrated with existing website solutions
Custom Solution	Consult with development agency for recommendations

Easy checkout and payment options

The best shopping apps have a smooth checkout process. Eliminate any friction in this process and make sure that customers can add items to their cart and finalize the purchase with as few clicks as possible.

Offering as many payment options as possible is another way to keep conversions high.

The options will typically depend on the shopping cart software you’ve selected. But the best shopping carts will support:

• All major credit cards (Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover)
• Debit cards
• PayPal
• Apple Pay
• Google Pay

This is the bare minimum that you should be accepting. But the more payment options you have, the better it will be for your conversion rates. 

Ideally, you’ll want users to buy from their profile. But having a mandatory login can be problematic, so you should still offer a guest checkout option. 

You’ll need to get it submitted to the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. Each of these platforms has different requirements for approvals and submissions, so make sure you understand the guidelines thoroughly before submitting.

Platform	Requirements
Apple App Store	Specific guidelines for app name, description, screenshots, app category, and app icon.
Google Play Store	Different set of requirements for app name, description, screenshots, app category, and app icon.

Examples of what you’ll need here include an app name, description, screenshots, app category, and an app icon.