Top Factors Affecting the Cost of eCommerce App Development

Do you have an entrepreneurial itch to sell the products online? Do you want to build an eCommerce app like Amazon? If so, you fall under one of the categories of entrepreneurs who step in with the trends, take an interest in innovations, and are ready for experimentation to build the business by keeping the product ahead of everything.

The desperateness of taking the business to a new level by embracing technology enables the retailers to execute the eCommerce idea and harness the power of mobile efficiently. It’s good because in the mobile age, going mobile is one of the best ways to boost your sales, bolster brand awareness, boost loyalty and fuel up revenue.

Also, going online with eCommerce development is the best channel for the retailers to deliver the product utility and services with greater efficacy, gather the customer’s data, market the offerings aptly and connect with customers deeply. But, app development can propel the online retailer’s throughput by quantum leaps jeopardizing the retailers with the cost factor.

Here, the cost of app development is not an intimidating factor for the retailers, or more precisely the question- “How much does it cost to build an M-commerce app? While the most comprehensive answer is – “It depends”, this is what makes them afraid to take a step ahead, so don’t fret!

Certainly, the prior information about the cost and importance of building an mCommerce app helps in making well-informed decisions, so considering it as a vital component for the E-commerce store; we have enlisted the factors that influence the cost of eCommerce app development. Let’s clear up the air for the difficult pricing estimation of the MCommerce app to be built:

Which factors affect the cost of an e-commerce app?

The accurate cost estimate of Ecommerce app development helps retailers get more visibility into how much they need to spend for the same. The cost breakdown depends on several factors:-

Feature List of Your Online Store

When a retailer wants to launch a unique eCommerce mobile app, they prefer to test the water with an MVP launch. The cost to build a small Ecommerce application with basic features starts from $10,000 to $15,000. When a medium-sized eCommerce app is built with the optimal number of features and intuitive UI/UX design, its costs range between $15,000-$30,000. If a retailer having franchises worldwide or nationwide wants to get developed a large-sized Ecommerce app like Amazon, they need to spend around $40,000-$80,000 for advanced functionalities and complex design engineering.

Platform [Android, iOS, Cross Platform ]

When you want to get build a native app for both platforms- Android and iOS, the starting cost will be around $20,000 and $30,000 respectively. The time and money required to build native apps are quite high as quality apps are built separately for both platforms. On the other hand, cross-platform app development approach helps you to build an Android and iOS app at the expense of one platform, that’s approximately $40,000. Cross-platform development requires developers to write code once and the app can be deployed on any platform with little tweaks, but compromise on quality is the drawback of the same.

Understand; Native vs Cross-Platform Mobile App Development

Ecommerce App Maintenance

eCommerce development companies found saying that app maintenance costs nearly 15-20% of the app development cost. You can negotiate with the eCommerce app development service provider that you select to hire before signing a contract with them regarding the inclusion of maintenance and support for your eCommerce application.

Location of eCommerce App Developers

The hourly rate of developers varies from nation to nation. For instance, USA-based eCommerce developers charge $100-$150 per hour, Australian eCommerce developers require you to pay $80-$100 per hour, and eCommerce developers in India are the most inexpensive with $20-$60 as an hourly rate. Based on your application development budget, partner with the eCommerce application developers of specific locations accordingly.

You can accomplish it by identifying how many working hours are required to build your app and then multiplying it by the developer’s hourly rate to identify if the developers can help you get your eCommerce app built within budget range or not.

Which pricing model is best: Fixed cost or Hourly cost

Development Process

The way you want to accomplish the Ecommerce app development vitally influences the development cost of your online eCommerce shop. When you want to build a custom app from scratch tailored to your eCommerce business needs, app development requires a large sum of money, time, and effort to invest. Typically, custom mobile app development for an online eCommerce store costs between $20,000 to $40,000.

However, if you don’t have enough budget and want to market the app in a reduced time, the clone app development approach is preferable. The clone app development process helps you get the app ready within a week or two at the one-tenth cost of the total development cost. The eCommerce clone app development cost ranges between $3000 to $5000, but it won’t guarantee security, stability, scalability, and a high degree of customization.

Third-party Integrations

Building every functionality in the eCommerce apps from the scratch is not a decent choice. Smart retailers and savvy developers prefer third-party service integration to enable a feature in the app just with plug-and-play.

The third-party services are available at a fraction of the cost of their actual development cost, and that’s a notable choice to boost revenue and reduce the development cost. For instance, the multiple payment options, multilingual feature, and the price can be displayed in different currencies based on geography; email marketing and newsletters will come inbuilt; gift card and coupon integration can be done; abandoned cart protection; send push notifications; tracking user analytics; pretty more.

The reliable services make perfect sense for M-commerce apps as they are incredibly time savvy and the cost of building one feature is quite expensive as opposed to integrating the third-party services on a subscription basis, which in turn, eliminates the need to handle and manage the features, and thereby increase the productivity as well.

Security Level

The credibility and reputation of the e-commerce app rest on the pillars of the robust security that it provides to the data entered by customers while carrying out the financial transaction. The data security assurance makes the customers feel confident about the products and services that they are purchasing through the app and builds trust in the brand’s app. It concludes any security breach does not just bring a huge loss to the brand, but it’s costing them a potential customer, and repairing the brand image costs a ton.

The best-in-class tools must be used to safeguard the user’s critical data, which in turn uplifts the app development cost in addition to app security. The investment in app security truly paid off for the brand in the form of user loyalty and favoritism.

Server Cost

Undoubtedly, as the business grows, the data will increase at a constant pace and to store the data, buying the server is all-imperative. However, purchasing the server to store the database is not a good to opt for because it unnecessarily stumps up the additional upfront cost, and managing the server locally is another headache.

Renting the space on cloud services is preferable whose pricing structure is based on the amount of storage, the number of requests made to the server in a day, and the bandwidth of data transferred to and from the server. Plus, the storage space can be extended as the data grows. You can use the digital calculator provided by the cloud services to calculate how much you have to pay monthly after renting the space. So, make the decision accordingly.

UI and UX Design

In the blood-thirsty competition, visual designing stays at the heart of eCommerce app development that can make the app stand out in the crowd. The stunning UI comprises seamless navigation, easy-to-understand app flow from one screen to another, screen designing, app icon design, animation, and high-resolution graphics that render a consistent experience to the users on every device they are using.

When you are developing native apps, then designing the out-of-box UI definitely incurs thousands of dollars because both platforms have different app design guidelines so a one-size-fits-all solution won’t work here. On the other hand, hybrid apps are the least expensive, but getting the native design is implausible.

Based on the number of versions of the operating system and the versatility of app design, the app design cost falls between $4000 to $25000.

Summing it up

Undisputably, the cost is the major driving force that decides whether the Ecommerce app idea is feasible for the retailers or not. The awareness of the factors that can influence the eCommerce app development cost helps the retailers in knowing which features they should include in the app that enable them to achieve the objective.

First, set aside your budget and then team up with the right app development partner to build a successful app that performs to the notch and appeals to users with the best-in-class shopping experience on mobile.