How much does an ecommerce app cost

Our life has changed rapidly over the past few years due to new opportunities and habits. E-stores offer a myriad of goods from all over the world, and it’s hard to find a resident of the city who has never succumbed to the temptation to purchase something online. The pandemic restrictions have worked like a catalyst for e-commerce industry growth. 

Since people get used to being mobile, and smartphones and iPhones are preferred for internet surfing than computers, selling websites concedes to convenient applications. Tailored specifically for android and iOS systems, the apps provide customers with fast work and comfortable navigation. So, if you are tuned to help the audience to appreciate the charms of online shopping, you can wonder how much does an ecommerce app cost? The Purrweb team has prepared a special guide for you in order to facilitate better understanding what determines an ecommerce app cost. These tips shed light on the factors which matter when you are organizing the development process. 

How to access the complexity of the project? 

You have probably heard many times that the app development cost depends on its innovative character and complexity, and ecommerce app cost isn’t an exception. But how to estimate these parameters? 

If you examine the existing solutions in the industry, you’ll discover that every app has a certain set of features. Some of them intersect, some are individual for the product. 

Depending on the quantity of the features and their specifics, the contractor can approximately say how much time this or that function implementation takes. When you have a calculation of ecommerce app cost made by experts, you can see how much time any feature takes, and prioritize the features in order that keeps your interests. Total time of work multiplied by the hourly rates of the agency equals the final ecommerce app cost. 

Of course, you can face the necessity to add some new features or refuse excessive ones in the process, and this will impact the ecommerce app cost, increasing or decreasing it. But if you meticulously have done your «homework», the alterations are expected to be minimal, and they won’t crucially influence money spending. 
Now it’s time for a lifehack. Let’s imagine the app you dream of requires approximately 800 hours. If the hourly rate of an agency is $100, the ecommerce app cost will be $80000. But when you’re dealing with specialists who charge $50 per hour of work, you can save a half of the budget. What’s interesting, the lower price doesn’t always mean worse quality. If the difference in price is explained by the difference in location of the experts, it can be a rewarding choice. The easiest way to cut costs without loss of the level of competence of the IT engineers, is to hire an e-commerce app development agency in Eastern Europe. It will be on average twice cheaper than payment for work of US experts.

Which features are essential for an e-commerce app?

The reliable way to transfer your idea to the contractor is to find a product which will be considered as a reference for your own deliverables. Exploring the e-commerce apps in the market, you can compose the list of features that play a significant role in the product functionality. If you focus only on the core features, you can start with an MVP approach. Such an approach provides starting business with a minimum investment, and lets build a complex app step by step, adding new features gradually. Trying to optimize the ecommerce app cost, explore the functionality which is essential for the viability of your solution. 

If we analyze the structure of the usual e-commerce app, we can note the features that are common for this type of product. 

Registration page

The gate into the world of online shopping where users can be taken onboard. The short sign up form with an inviting design and informative tips serves as a working magnet for visitors.  

Personal account

Every customer needs an individual space where he can see all information related to his interests. 

Catalog with searching bar

The plethora of goods should be not only represented in the app but supplied with user-friendly filters helping to depict brand, size, color, price and other important parameters for buyers. 

Item page

To represent goods for buyers, sellers fill in the item pages where photos and description of things are settled. The opportunity to add hashtags empowers sellers to boost customers’ searches and find precisely what they want. 

Wishlist

To keep the desired items for future purchases, it is a necessary function for many visitors who don’t like spontaneous decisions. 

Payment service

The easier it is to pay for an item, the better are chances to retain customers and foster them to purchase something. In-built payment services are an obligatory part of e-commerce apps, they should be secured and easy-to-use. 

Order history, customer reviews or customer support chat 

They can make the app more functional and convenient, but it doesn’t matter for the customer’s opportunity to make purchases in the app. Depending on the gained financial support you can add these features to the list or implement them later. 

The specifics of an e-commerce app is in its splitting into two versions: for buyers and for sellers. Obviously, this factor determines increasing the ecommerce app cost as you need to pay double work. Bearing in mind various platforms, this scope becomes even greater.

 

How does technology stack impact the price of the app?

Cooperating with an expert team, you can count on getting a good bang for your buck, since the guys can give you tips on how to get an excellent product for a reasonable price. Would you like to split between two platforms to provide your customers with contemporary solutions? Many famous companies make this mistake until they discover how fast, convenient and essentially cheaper alternatives can be. 

We are talking about specific platforms that enable teams to perform work for smartphone and iPhone owners at the same time. When the major part of code coincides for the products, it’s faster, and respectively, cheaper to make any changes and add new features in the future. 

The magic tool that entails ecommerce app cost optimization is React Native. The Purrweb team recommends it for top level product development since the guys noticed it allows startup founders to deliver solutions about 30% faster than in case you’re working with programmers who prefer native tools. As for user experience, there’s no reason for anxiety as React Native is flexible, and it opens a wide space for creativity and fits for implementation of any complex design and functionality. 

The Purrweb team, for example, creates a product for online stores in just three months on average, and the average e-commerce app cost is staggering around $40000.
So, if you have a strong intention to build a startup for reasonable money, get in touch with agencies to take a consultation and an approximate estimation of the project. When you can weigh all the factors that matter to an ecommerce app cost, it’s easier to find a team that is on the same vibe with you. When you’re choosing a contractor, pay attention not only to hourly rates, but to the communication skills, human values and relevant experience as well. Sometimes a perfect match in the vision of the product in detail is worth more than the lowest bill.