The global coronavirus pandemic and the continuous advancement in technology have pushed more people to rely on using their smartphones and other electronic gadgets for various activities. With everyone urged to stay at home and limit direct, physical interaction with others, people these days no longer just use their mobile phones for communication but for other daily activities as well. This includes shopping.
Online shopping has been around for many years already. However, it only became more in trend this past year and this trend is expected to continue in the next decades. Instead of driving to a local brick-and-mortar store, people nowadays just take their mobile device and buy the things they need and want through various online shopping stores and even from different social media marketplaces. With people now turning to the internet to buy goods and services, businesses are compelled to establish a web destination where they can reach and meet their potential customers. This has provided eCommerce a massive market around the world. Unfortunately, this has also caused the competition to get stiffer.
To keep up with and to stay ahead of the rising competition, it is no longer enough to simply create a typical eCommerce web app. You need to offer more to your valued customers. This means adding more user-friendly features that will not only attract potential customers but will also encourage sales and repeat purchases, improve customer retention, and boost customer satisfaction. One effective way of attaining all these results is by going where your customers go. And these days, customers are going mobile.
By creating your own eCommerce mobile app, you can be able to reach a wider market. However, developing a new eCommerce mobile app is quite challenging. With the rising competition and with almost anything a customer is looking for can now be found in other eCommerce mobile apps, finding ways to make your app stand out among the rest is the biggest challenge you need to deal with. But this isn’t all. Below are the top challenges that developers and businesses face when developing a new eCommerce mobile app.
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Developing a user-friendly mobile app
User experience can either break or make the future of your eCommerce mobile app. It is one of the key factors that can affect user engagement and mobile app success. Needless to say, you need to develop a mobile app that does not only offers great features but is also user-friendly. A user-friendly mobile app is easy to use, has a good navigation feature, bug-free, and has a pleasing visual identity.
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Variability of internet accessibility
Not all places in the world enjoy ultra-fast mobile internet speed. There are places where the mobile internet speed is pretty fast and there are also places where internet access is limited.
When designing an eCommerce mobile app, you need to carefully consider this limitation. You would want all your users to have access to your eCommerce mobile app, right? If so, consider developing an app that is not only accessible through mobile internet but also available offline.
Another problem that you need to deal with is the amount of data your mobile app will likely consume. Consider developing an app that uses lighter file formats so it won’t eat up a large chunk of mobile internet data.
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Compatibility to varying screen resolution and screen sizes
Your eCommerce mobile app must not only be compatible with different mobile devices and operating systems but also with different screen sizes and screen resolutions. Mobile devices are designed with varying screen sizes and screen resolutions. The problem now is how you can make your eCommerce mobile app fit into different screen sizes and screen resolutions without distorting the images or without making it look pixelated.
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Ensuring data and mobile app security
Security is a major concern for mobile app developers, businesses, and end-users especially with the increasing number of online hackers who are always on the lookout for potential victims. When users download and run your app on their mobile devices, they are entrusting their confidential data to your hands. It is then your responsibility to ensure that all the sensitive information and data of the end-users that are stored on the mobile app are safe and secured. Moreover, the sensitive data of the app itself should be protected with the highest level of security.
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Identifying the right features to add
eCommerce mobile apps are getting more sophisticated nowadays and users are expecting more from mobile apps. If you want your app to stand out, you need to go with the trend as well. But you also have to consider the core values of your client’s business and know what they want to offer to the end-users through their mobile app.
With so much to choose from and with many things to consider, identifying the right features to integrate into the eCommerce mobile app that you are developing can be quite difficult. As much as possible, you want to include all basic and premium features in the app. However, you can’t just add them all without considering the amount of space or data they will likely consume.
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Diversity of mobile devices and operating systems
There are different kinds of mobile devices. Mobile phones like smartphones, tablets, and feature phones, as well as mobile computers like netbooks, laptops, and tablet computers, are just some of them. These mobile devices are powered by different operating systems. Currently, the accessible operating systems for mobile devices are Android, iOS, Blackberry, Firefox, Windows Phone, and Fire OS. The challenge now is how you can create an eCommerce mobile app that will run across different operating systems and mobile devices.
You also have to note that not all of these OS and mobile devices are viable platforms for an eCommerce mobile app. As a developer, you have to know which platform you want your mobile app to run and design it for your chosen platform. Right now, the most preferred operating systems to launch any mobile app are Android and iOS. However, this does not mean that you can only develop a mobile app for these operating systems.
Endnote:
These are just some of the biggest challenges that most developers need to deal with when developing an eCommerce mobile app. Even seasoned developers face these challenges and more. The good thing is that there are always effective solutions to every challenge and you will eventually learn the ropes as you gain more experience.
About Author:-
Ankit Patel is a Sales/Marketing Manager at XongoLab Technologies LLP, a leading mobile app development company. As a hobby, He loves to write articles about technology, business, mobile app, and marketing. His articles featured on Datafloq, JaxEnter, TechTarget, eLearninggAdobe, DesignWebKit, InstantShift and many more.