Ecommerce app development has turned the digital world upside down and changed the way people shop forever. With just a few taps on your smartphone, you can easily browse through millions of products, purchase them with one click checkout, and get them delivered right to your doorstep within days or even hours.
The absolute convenience, variety, and simplicity offered by shopping on ecommerce apps like Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and more have completely revolutionized and disrupted traditional brick-and-mortar retail. For consumers, the benefits are huge – more selection, better prices, added convenience, and an overall superior shopping experience.
However, as the famous saying goes, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Behind the simple storefronts and sleek apps, building a successful and fully-featured app requires significant investments of time, effort, and careful planning.
Yes! We’re talking about ecommerce app costs.
Understanding the real ecommerce app development cost is absolutely crucial, especially for startups with limited budgets. So, in this ultimate guide, we will break down the key factors that influence the cost of building an ecommerce app in 2024.
Remember… Whether you’re looking to create an app for your existing business or launching a startup, you need an accurate app development estimate. Hence, this blog will allow you to budget properly and ensure your app vision becomes a reality.
20 Emerging Strategies to Minimize…
…Ecommerce App Development Costs in 2024
As innovation in the ecommerce sector continues to accelerate, new technologies and strategies are emerging that can help significantly optimize the cost of building a robust ecommerce mobile or web application.
In 2024, businesses can take advantage of a variety of techniques around architecture, testing, team assembly, integrations, and infrastructure to develop their ecommerce apps faster and more affordably. In this section, we will cover some of the key strategies to consider for minimizing ecommerce app costs in 2024.
1.Use No-Code Platforms
No-code development platforms like Bubble, Adalo, and Thunkable will mature tremendously in the coming year. With the help of these visual, drag-and-drop platforms you do not require coding skills. To be precise, you can build sophisticated web and mobile apps.
Moreover, ecommerce businesses can use these to quickly build and iterate on their MVP as well as make changes down the road. Plus, such platforms can cut ecommerce app development costs by 50% or more compared to hiring traditional developers.
2. Evaluate Serverless Architecture
As cloud infrastructure and services expand rapidly in 2024, leveraging a serverless architecture approach will become much more feasible and affordable for ecommerce apps. You must be thinking, what are serverless computing services… Well, serverless computing services like AWS Lambda, Google Cloud Functions, and Azure Functions allow running backend code without needing to manage any physical servers.
Making sense?
Ecommerce apps can use these auto-scaling serverless services to execute key backend functions like payment processing, order fulfillment, inventory updates, notifications, and more. This eliminates the need to provision and maintain servers for these tasks.
Better above, a serverless architecture can optimize resource usage and costs by running backend processes only when triggered by specific events. Serverless billing is based on actual computation used, unlike always-on servers. These factors can reduce overall ecommerce infrastructure costs significantly compared to traditional hosted servers.
3. Automated Testing Will Mature
By 2024, smart automated testing tools utilizing artificial intelligence and machine learning will have matured significantly. Tools like Applitools integrate advanced image recognition and visual AI to automate key testing workflows like cross-browser compatibility, visual regressions, etc.
Compared to manual testing, this can cut QA time by over 50%. With faster testing, bugs can be caught early, lowering development time and app release cycles. The efficiency gains ultimately translate to lower QA costs (obviously reducing overall ecommerce app costs).
4. Voice and AR Commerce Will Rise
As voice recognition and conversational AI continues advancing, shopping via voice assistants will become more commonplace by 2024. Additionally, with improvements in AR/VR hardware capabilities, integrating immersive augmented reality into shopping journeys will provide differentiation.
Unlike complex visual apps and UIs, voice and AR-based experiences require less design complexity thereby reducing app development cost and time. Ecommerce apps should evaluate and pioneer these technologies to provide next-gen commerce for mobile and desktop.
5. Microservices Architecture
A microservices architecture breaks down an app into smaller, decentralized services instead of one monolithic system. Each microservice focuses on a specific capability like cart, search, payments, etc. This approach will gain more traction by 2024. The benefits are that different services can be developed, managed, and scaled independently as needed.
Teams can also be structured flexibly around each microservice. Overall, this enables more agile, modular development and cost optimization. You see, how we can reduce ecommerce app development costs so far.
6. Emerging Payment Modes
As cryptocurrency payments, Buy Now Pay Later options, and embedded financing gain wider adoption by 2024, customers will expect ecommerce apps to support these new payment modes. The good news is integrations will become easier through payment gateways and APIs. Supporting diverse emerging payments allows maximizing customer conversion/checkout while requiring minimal additional ecommerce app costs and efforts.
7. Take Advantage of 5G Connectivity
As 5G networks expand globally by 2024, ecommerce apps can take advantage by loading higher-resolution product images, 3D models, and videos without optimization. This allows customers to view products in greater detail for better engagement. From a development perspective, 5G alleviates spending significant time compressing visual assets thereby reducing the app development services costs.
8. Evaluate Low-Code Platform Options
Low-code platforms like Appian and OutSystems are gaining traction as visual, model-driven tools that can build quality applications faster with minimal hand-coding. For ecommerce in 2024, low-code is worth evaluating as its drag-and-drop interfaces, automation, and prebuilt components can potentially accelerate development phases like workflows and integrations that traditionally require extensive coding.
If a fit for app requirements, low-code can deliver sizable productivity gains versus traditional hand-coding, thereby reducing overall development time and cost.
9. Lean on Ecommerce SaaS Providers
Rather than expend development resources reinventing basic ecommerce capabilities, leverage targeted SaaS platforms in 2024 for needs like search, recommendations, chatbots, and payments. Also, specialized providers enable focusing engineering efforts on customizing the user experience and core differentiators. Plus, integrating third-party SaaS solutions avoids wasted time rebuilding commoditized functionality from scratch, allowing faster launch with optimized costs.
There are numerous ways to bring down the ecommerce app development costs… keep reading if you don’t want to miss out on important information.
10. Offshore Maintenance and Support
After launching an ecommerce app, businesses can save a lot of money by hiring lower-cost overseas teams to handle ongoing maintenance, customer support, and content creation. If you’re thinking you can avoid these tasks… let us burst the bubble.
You need to provide these services to maintain a relationship with your client. However, with remote work norms in 2024, tapping into skilled yet lower-cost talent pools in regions like Eastern Europe and Asia is very feasible for non-core functions.
This allows the in-house team to focus on high-value product innovation and core differentiators. Offshoring non-critical post-launch tasks to qualified partners can deliver huge savings that positively impact overall ecommerce app costs. And remote collaboration tools make integrating distributed teams easier than ever.
11. Explore Refurbished Hardware Options
Refurbished servers, laptops, and other hardware can be great cost-effective options in 2024 for equipping your development and support teams. Indeed, certified refurbished equipment from reputable suppliers works as good as new gear but is available at significant discounts of 40% or more. For resource-constrained ecommerce startups, going refurbished on non-mission critical hardware can help slash capital expenditures substantially with overall ecommerce app costs.
12. Automate Marketing and User Engagement
There is no second thought about it, sophisticated automation tools for marketing, user segmentation, and triggering personalized campaigns will become much more accessible by 2024. Ecommerce apps should certainly look to leverage AI-driven automation to minimize repetitive and time-consuming manual work across the entire customer lifecycle – right from acquisition to engagement to retention.
Intelligent automation enables creating hyper-personalized and contextually relevant experiences and communication for each user segment. This hyper-targeting and automation can deliver significantly higher conversions and revenue growth while freeing up human time and effort from mundane tasks – ultimately reducing ecommerce app development costs.
13. Leverage Progressive Web Apps
Well peeps, progressive web apps (PWAs) will continue gaining significant traction as a way to build cross-platform ecommerce experiences that function like native apps but are built with web technology. In 2024, PWAs will present a very compelling alternative to pure native apps by reducing overall development and maintenance costs.
PWAs allow core commerce capabilities like browsing catalogs, managing carts, and handling payments to be achieved using common web development stacks like React, Angular, Vue and Node.js. This avoids the need for expensive ecommerce app development services including native platforms and SDKs. PWAs also simplify supporting multiple platforms compared to building separate native iOS and Android apps.
With emerging standards like WebAssembly gaining wider support, PWAs will become even more capable and app-like in their speed and fluidity. Ecommerce companies in 2024 can leverage PWAs to quickly build mobile and desktop apps that feel native while sharing business logic across platforms – ultimately reducing ecommerce app costs.
14. Evaluate Hybrid App Frameworks
In 2024, hybrid mobile app development frameworks like React Native and Flutter are worth evaluating and leveraging for ecommerce apps. These innovative frameworks allow building cross-platform native iOS and Android apps using a single shared codebase and set of business logic.
Unlike traditional native development which requires completely separate codebases for iOS and Android, hybrid frameworks reuse much of the same JavaScript or Dart code across platforms. This means faster development cycles and huge savings on overall ecommerce app development costs, while still achieving native performance and UX.
For ecommerce apps, nearly 80% of the source code can be shared when using React Native or Flutter. Capabilities like product catalogs, search, shopping carts, and payments can all leverage the common codebase. Only small portions of native UI code need to be customized for each platform’s patterns.
Above all, the productivity and speed advantages over pure native development are massive. Hybrid frameworks finally make it feasible for lean engineering teams to build high quality native commerce apps cost-effectively.
15. Leverage Commerce PaaS Solutions
In the year ahead, ecommerce apps should leverage purpose-built commerce Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solutions which provide robust, enterprise-ready ecommerce engines via APIs and SDKs. Rather than building custom platforms, solutions like Elastic Path and Commercetools enable launching full-featured commerce apps faster and more affordably.
These commerce PaaS offerings provide prebuilt capabilities for product management, cart, checkout, payments, subscriptions, and more. By relying on proven PaaS commerce frameworks, startups can focus engineering efforts on customer experience differentiation and avoid wasted time recreating commoditized backend infrastructure.
No wonder, by leveraging commerce PaaS – the development time and ecommerce app costs savings will be substantial.
16. Consider an MVP Launch
If you really want to bring down your ecommerce app development cost then you should consider an MVP-first approach. With this strategy you can launch a minimum viable product in weeks using quick-launch app templates, agile build-measure-learn cycles, and no-code platforms. MVP launch allows validating core concepts extremely fast with real users rather than over building everything upfront.
Above and beyond, the latest no-code tools and prebuilt mobile/web components allow assembling a streamlined yet functional MVP rapidly. Moreover, integrating analytics and feedback loops is also faster than ever before.
The benefit is avoiding getting bogged down for months building every feature imagined. An MVP gathers real data on must-have functionality and pain points directly from users. By doing so, you can come up with smarter product enhancements while saving on precious time and money.
17. Evaluate Alternative Monetization Models
Rather than monetizing through paid apps or traditional ecommerce models, startups should evaluate alternative emerging models. For example, innovators are pioneering concepts like social commerce, decentralized ownership, and digital collectibles. Additionally, ultra-fast delivery in hyperlocal urban markets is disrupting logistics. Exploring such cutting-edge models allows finding creative ways to monetize without steep upfront app development costs.
Better yet, Web3 concepts around blockchain, NFTs, and tokenized communities present opportunities to build engaged user bases. Plus, models like subscriptions, advertising, and transaction fees can also lower adoption barriers. Being an ecommerce player, you need to think outside the box.
By leveraging imaginative new monetization models startups can gain a competitive edge in attracting users without expensive traditional ecommerce app development. Re-read it…
18. Explore Crowdsourced Testing
Crowdsources tests will surely be extremely cost-effective for ecommerce applications – And that is just because of online work platforms and global connectivity. Besides, services like test.io and Applause enable on-demand access to diverse worldwide testers to validate web, mobile, and multi-device experiences.
Not just this, by opting for crowdsourced QA, startups can scale up testing on a budget while reducing in-house resources overhead. As opposed to dedicated internal QA staff, crowdsourced testing offers flexible scaling, faster feedback, and more comprehensive multi-device coverage without Sky-high costs.
Keep in mind, artificial intelligence and advanced analytics are making crowdsourced testing pretty smart. Bugs can be auto-categorized with high-value test scenarios generated quickly based on real user data.
Hence, by capitalizing on the intelligent automation of crowdsourced testing in 2024, ecommerce innovators can deliver bug-free experiences across platforms in record time and with optimized ecommerce app costs of testing.
19. Leverage Pre-Built Design Libraries
Website developers should leverage freely available, pre-built UI/UX libraries and templates rather than expensive fully custom design.
Advanced sites like UI8 offer thousands of customizable web and mobile components, themes, icons, illustrations covering modern ecommerce. Popular open-source libraries like Bootstrap, Material Design and Fluent UI also provide beautiful, consistent UI elements.
Instead of every visual asset from scratch, developers can configure and tweak these existing resources. Mixing and matching pre-built templates and components tailored to the brand saves enormous design time and cost.
Access to ample high-quality pre-existing assets allows assembling slick, polished, and unique user experiences rapidly at a fraction of traditional custom development costs. Leveraging libraries cuts design overheads for ecommerce apps in 2024.
20. Evaluate App Refactoring
For established ecommerce app development, continuously refactoring and optimizing the existing codebase is far more cost-effective than rebuilding from scratch.
Refactoring improves internal structure and design of code without changing external functionality. This allows enhancing performance, reducing bugs, and removing unused legacy features.
Rather than expensive full rewrites, dedicated engineering sprints focused on incrementally refactoring ensures apps evolve efficiently. Tackling areas like improving backend algorithms, streamlining databases, upgrading APIs, removing deprecated code and technical debt reduces long-term costs.
Automated refactoring tools also speed up the process in 2024. Overall, by dedicating resources to regularly refactor and enhance existing apps, companies can sustain innovation and quickly adapt to market changes without the major costs of ground-up redevelopment.
For ecommerce apps, committing to continuous, targeted refactoring initiatives pays dividends by incrementally improving quality while avoiding unnecessary new development expenses.
And It’s a Wrap!
As we look ahead to 2024, it is clear that businesses have an expanding toolbox of innovative strategies and technologies to optimize and reduce the costs of app development cost – without compromising on quality or capabilities. By adopting modern approaches like low-code platforms, AI-driven automation, voice/AR commerce, and serverless infrastructure, companies can build and launch feature-rich ecommerce apps faster and more affordable than ever before.
Not just this, cost reductions of 20% to 60% are easily achievable. Besides, with the right roadmap even bootstrapped startups and smaller players can turn their ecommerce app visions into reality. Better yet, companies that leverage these emerging best practices will gain a competitive edge with apps that delight customers and rapidly deliver ROI.
With careful planning, what once seemed an expensive affair reserved only for large enterprises, is now very much within reach for businesses of all sizes looking to craft differentiated mobile and web commerce experiences in the coming year and beyond.
Still, if you need help with ecommerce app development – Geeks of Kolachi based in the USA can provide top-notch software development services.
