How to Create a Successful E-Commerce App Like Amazon: A Step by Step Guide

The eCommerce industry has reshaped the ways of shopping for customers all across the world. Adoption of advanced technologies like AR, VR, and AI for enabling a better user experience and streamlining payments and transactions through Blockchain, is the most exceptional example of evolving eCommerce.

The world is shifting towards mobile technology. Every organization wishes to dominate their respective industries by utilizing enterprise mobility. The same goes for the eCommerce industry where 64% of traffic is coming from mobile devices.

The inclusion of smooth and secured payments, rich user experience, interactive data management, and fast processing are some of the crucial factors why eCommerce applications like Amazon have been on the top of the industry.

The main key to its ceaseless growth has been a timely understanding of its users’ needs and implementation of the right features and technologies.

Why Do You Need an eCommerce App like Amazon?

Amazon has been among the world’s most successful enterprises over years. Its mobile application has played a crucial role in its success as an eCommerce company. There are plenty of things that make Amazon stand out from any of its contenders in the eCommerce industry.

Since Amazon is the biggest hit as an eCommerce app, many want to emulate it.

Going to the core of the app, it is evident that the backbone of Amazon, the eCommerce app, is the credibility it has gained over years, its rich-useability, and the flexibility to adopt new technologies.

There is another supreme advantage for Amazon’s eCommerce apps that the company itself has launched several new technologies to better its processes.

If you are trying to develop an eCommerce app, there can not be an eCommerce app as ideal as Amazon. The application itself has launched several new processes to the eCommerce industry and does not seem to halt yet.

Advanced Tech Stack for Developing an App like Amazon

1. Application and Data

React
It is an open-source JavaScript library used to create UI components.

Java
Well-known cloud-based and object-oriented programming language used to provide implementation dependencies.

MySQL
An open-source Relational Database Management System used for simplification of application setup and data operations.

AngularJS
An open-source JavaScript Framework used to make HTML code more expressive and readable. Also, provides an excellent use of modules.

Redux
Open-source JavaScript library works peer-to-peer with React or Angular to create highly-interactive UIs.

Perl
The dynamic programming language used for system administration, complex data structures, first-class functions, creating GUIs, and automatic memory management.

2. Utilities

Amazon SES
Cost-effective APIs to support email use cases, including transactional, marketing, authentication, or mass, email communications.

Amazon API Gateway
Create Rest and Web-Socket APIs that support serverless workloads, allow two-way communication through your application in real-time.

Amazon Kinesis
Integrate, process, and analyze data available in different formats such as video, audio, app logs, website clickstreams, and IoT telemetry data for machine learning, analytics.

Utilization of Other Amazon Web Services (AWS) APIs
There are many other AWS services that can be used to create heavy-weight eCommerce apps like Amazon. These APIs include Amazon A/B Testing for in-app experiments, Amazon SWF for automated & cross-machine interaction between applications, Amazon Mobile Analytics for accumulating & visualizing app usage data.

3. DevOps

Amazon ECS
Indulges in concurrent functioning and execution of tasks through simple API calls. It provides developers with functionality to create an astounding development and deployment experience.

Amazon CloudWatch
It is a monitoring system providing engineers, IT managers, and developers with data on logs, metrics, and events. It presents all resources and applications on AWS in a unified form.

Jest
Jest is a JavaScript test runner that is used to engage in an optimum testing experience. It is used to test the frontend of apps created using Vue, Node, Angular, and React.

Must-Have Features to Create an eCommerce App

 

Features in your application are the first impression to your clients or app users. To develop a competitive and efficient eCommerce app like Amazon, it is significant to include the adoption of premium features.

You may consider a smart competitor analysis to analyze what new or trending is available in the market. It can help you make decisions a step ahead of your competitors and gain a competitive advantage.

Here are the most popular and fundamental features of an eCommerce app like Amazon;

Easy Registration

An easy-to-use registration panel is the first stage to let your customers understand the level of user experience you are going to provide them. You make sure that registration is the most simplistic process in the entire app. This is the gateway to an association of years and sometimes a few seconds.

Allow more third-party account integration to let the users log in through them. If necessary, you can ask for more important details once the customers have created their accounts with you.

Interactive Product Listing

eCommerce app is all about products and purchases. Thus, listing products is a crucial process. For a better engagement, you can add different colors, views, and size availability of a single product.

The product description provides an opportunity to let your customers understand a bit more details of your product that cannot be conveyed through its images. Storage compatibility is the key to the faster listing of products.

Developers can include a wishlist that will allow users to mark the product of their interests and purchase them anytime later if they remain in stock.

Advanced Search Options and Filters

A rightly placed search bar has been a conventional yet integral approach to allow your customers to find their products faster. The inclusion of filters made it simpler for them. With technological upgradations, the demand for more rich-featured search options arose.

Visual search allowed users to find their desired products using images captured or stored in their devices and links to the images. It helps users to find products of their choice without knowing the brand details. Pinterest is using visual search options to show relevant ads to its users when they explore something on the platform.

Voice search optimization has enabled Alexa to cope with Amazon’s eCommerce platform. It has gained immense popularity in different industry domains over years. However, the most significant adoption of voice assistant was witnessed in the eCommerce app. Users can interact with the eCommerce app using their voice and search the items of their needs by answering a few questions. It is simple like never before.

Payment System

Mobile app developers are utilizing Blockchain and other advanced technologies to enable flawless and smooth payments. Even online payments are available in different modes. Thus, to synchronize the versatile payment processes with the technical architecture of the applications, the eCommerce app will engage in a more flexible and secure app environment. Since security is the most significant factor, Blockchain will allow applications to perform encrypted transactions from one end to another.

Push Notifications

To outreach customers directly when they have your app installed, using push notifications is the way to do it. Push notifications help eCommerce companies to communicate about their deals, offers, or any other updates. The objective of push notifications can be defined by the admins as per the app permissions and their requirements. For example; they can add stock alerts to let customers know about the stock of the products in their wishlist, new products, offs, and marketing campaigns.

Supply Chain Management System

Since the process structure of the eCommerce industry largely relies upon an efficient supply chain management system, eCommerce apps have a vital role to play here. From vendors to end-customers, everyone will use the same app’s data to perform their respective tasks.

It becomes significant for app developers to make their eCommerce apps compatible to work along with different business models, multi-channel transactions, interactive frontend, and a strong backend. Such an approach will certainly help everyone associated with the process.

Real-Time Order Tracking

Order tracking is quite a common feature offered in eCommerce app development services. However, there are a few applications that engage in strong preciseness in providing real-time tracking data on orders.

Most of the time, eCommerce companies partner with courier companies and extract the data from their end. Due to a slow or inefficient software system, eCommerce apps fail to cope with the needs of the users in terms of data-efficiency.

Security

An incompetent security approach can cause severe disadvantages to eCommerce apps. There have been several incidents in the past where companies lost revenues, customer credibility, and their identity in the market due to security-related loopholes and vulnerabilities in their apps.

Adoption of technologies like Blockchain has enabled eCommerce to mitigate the security risks in their apps.

Customer Support

To hear from your customers, you need to provide them alternative ways to interact with you. It would increase the chances of facing any disruption in communication. Virtual assistants and chatbots have been key in transforming peer-to-peer communication between customers and eCommerce companies.

Apart from that, they can integrate the third-party application to enable communication through mail, text, or direct call.

What are the Steps to Develop an App like Amazon?

We have discussed three main components of developing an eCommerce app like Amazon for you; tech stack, budget, and features; now we shall discuss the steps to accomplish this. It will help you comprehend the role of everything discussed in the earlier sections and provide you with a clear picture of your eCommerce app to be.

Research & Plan

It is important to do the analysis of the application you wish to emulate and remain realistic on your requirements, budget, and current possibilities. Since we are talking about Amazon’s eCommerce app, you can plan what features you do or do not wish to include in our application.

Features will affect your budget and tech stack too. Thus, it is significant to do research on what your competitors are offering, what better you can offer, and plan your features and budget accordingly.

Finalizing Tech Stack

Clients and the eCommerce app development solutions providers can discuss what technologies can be the best to their requirements in terms of features and budget. We have discussed the tech stack for Amazon’s eCommerce app. That can be optimum for you to develop an eCommerce app like Amazon’s. A good tech stack is a key to a high-performing mobile application.

A wrong decision on the tech stack can lengthen the process. An unsustainable tech stack can provide you with unprecedented results, which sometimes can create complicacy and require frequent updations in the application.

Wireframe the App

Map your eCommerce application’s flow through screens and features. Scale your content in mobile frames to help your clients comprehend the user flow.

It will help you make the initial call on the inclusion of features and visualize how helpful your eCommerce app will execute the tasks for vendors and end-customers.

A wireframe can help the clients and mobile app development company visualize a raw picture of their to be Amazon-like eCommerce application.

Tools like Balsamiq, Moqups, InVision, Pidoco, Protoshare, Wireframe.cc, and Adobe XD.

Create a Prototype

To allow your users to comprehend the navigation flow, forms, features, and tabs available on the application. It helps clients and developers to visualize a real-time image of the application. It may seem to be like wireframing but it is a process to create and simulate a high-fidelity resolution of your eCommerce application to be.

You can use tools such as Atomic, Axure, Justinmind, FluidUI, Proto.io, Marvel, Adobe XD and InVision to create the prototype of your Amazon-like eCommerce app.

Choosing the Platform

Android has the world’s largest base of customers. iOS is among the world’s most popular operating systems. You can define the platform you want your eCommerce app to run on.

To develop an eCommerce app runnable on Android platform, you can consult an android app development company.

Subsequently, you can consult an iOS app development company for developing native eCommerce apps for iOS platform.

Considering your budget and time, you can determine if you wish to develop native apps for different platforms, or hybrid or cross-platform apps to run across different operating systems using a shared codebase.

For best efficiency, we recommend developing native apps for different platforms.

Design UI/UX

Before designing your eCommerce app with a mobile app design company, you can take inspiration from UI patterns available on the internet.

You can try these websites to get UI inspiration for your eCommerce app;

• Pinterest
• Dribble
• UI Place
• Bashooka
• Behance

Once you have taken inspiration for your eCommerce app, you can then choose frontend technologies from the planned tech stack and create an interactive design with the help of a UI/UX design company.

Moreover, you can also incorporate app templates from websites like;

• Template.net
• InVision
• W3Layouts
• Mockplus

Your eCommerce app’s UI/UX will play a crucial role in engaging users with your app and comprehend your offerings through text, animation, graphics, sound, videos, buttons, gestures, etc.

You can code the must-have features you need for the application. We have discussed all such features in the earlier section.

API Integration

Creating a backend can be costlier and less efficient. Thus, we recommend integrating third-party APIs to make your application less complex.

There are more reasons to choose API integration over backend development such as;

• Low Budget
• Extended Functionality
• Rich Usability & Reusability
• Smooth Synchronization
• More Secured
• High Maintenance

API integration lets developers adopt direct functionalities to the eCommerce application. Such an approach streamlines all eCommerce processes interactively.

Developers can use the below APIs to create an eCommerce app;
Product information API

• Shipping API
• Orders API
• Catalog API
• Inventory API
• Payment API
• Authentication/Login API
• Marketing API
• Validation API and many more.

Testing

To assess the functionality, usability, efficiency, compatibility, APIs, and security of the eCommerce application, before making the final product out, we test. We assess the quality of our application on the scale of different standards.

There are plenty of tools used to perform QA testing on mobile apps that include Selenium, JUnit, NUnit, PHPUnit, Amazon Device Farm, etc.

To analyze any real-time challenges, you can perform alpha testing on your application where testers within the eCommerce app development company test and check if there are any bugs or errors in the product.

In the next step of Beta testing, the product is launched to a few users who use the application and assess if the app works fine. If there are any bugs or errors by those users, feedback is given to the developers, and issues are rectified.

Launch

After user acceptance testings (Alpha and Beta), the app is considered as the final product to be delivered. To launch or make the app available to the users, clients can use third-party distribution platforms such as APP Store and Play Store.

You can also use email marketing to notify your users about your eCommerce app’s availability.

Maintenance

Once your eCommerce application has been developed, it is advisable to test your application at periodic intervals. It escapes any bugs that exist and utilize scalability to upgrade your eCommerce app’s functionality.

Driving Factors of the Cost to Develop an App Like Amazon

The complete estimate of the cost to make an app like Amazon relies upon several factors. The process followed by the developers plays a crucial role in defining the total cost. The longer the process is, there are chances that it would be costlier.

Below are the main factors that drive the mobile app development cost for an eCommerce app like Amazon;

• Wireframing and app prototype
• Technologies used in UX/UI Design
• Technologies used to create backend
• QA Testing
• Incorporation of basic & advanced features
• Additional services such as maintenance service & app marketing

There can be geographical variations in the costs charged by different app development companies across the globe. However, the proportional share of each cost-driving element may remain the same.

Development of natives apps through platform-oriented technologies can cost differently. It means you may need to define your budget with a different approach for iPhone app development services than Android app development services.

Reports and Statistics

eCommerce apps have played a crucial role in transforming the industry with new trends and features. Amazon with its worldwide recognition has leveraged the trend to the fullest.

• 54.5% of buyers prefer eCommerce apps for online purchases. (GoodFirms)
• 80.64% of mobile reach in the United States made Amazon the most popular shopping app in 2019. (Statista)
• 53.9% of all retail e-commerce is expected to be generated via m-commerce in 2021. (Statista)
• 59% of shoppers prefer to browse a brand or retailer on mobile before purchasing. (HubSpot)

Let’s have a look at some insights that seem to suggest the same;

Conclusion

To create your own distinguishable identity in the market like Amazon, you may need more time, but following the right plan, may surely provide you success.

Adoption of advanced features, personalization of user requirements, and an apt implementation of mobile app development process can lead you to develop a rich-featured, simplistic, and lucrative eCommerce app.