How to Make a Shopping App like Wish, Only Better [10-Step Process]

How does one create a shopping app?

This guide gives you all the necessary details while avoiding market pitfalls that turn bright start-up ideas into grim failures.

Statistics support the fact that 80% of smartphone users purchase goods and services via mobile devices. Just imagine - mobile commerce sales account for $3.56 trillion, which is almost 70% of all online sales, especially those driven by the COVID-19 pandemic. Now that the pandemic has triggered the user behavior to shop online more, the benefit of creating a shopping app for your trading business is an undeniable fact.

The topics we will cover in this guide, include:

• In-depth market analysis of shopping applications
• The leading online shopping apps and their key features
• Main functionality and tech approaches to create a shopping app
• 9 ultimate steps to create an app to sell distinct goods and services
• Budget and timeline for making your online store

Our recommendations are based on 10 years of experience in mobile app development services, marketplace website development, and profound marketing research, and an analysis of the top famous shopping apps on the market.

Let’s dive right into the subject.

Is There a Market to Create a Shopping App?

When thinking about how to create a shopping app, start with a market analysis.

Based on the conducted research, the lion's share of apps belongs to the domains of gaming, social media, business, and education. The share of shopping apps on the Apple Store makes up only 5.26% of the total market according to Statista. Nevertheless, the demand for online shopping apps is growing dramatically, not just in the US, but in the UK, France, and Germany, as mentioned by Forbes.

• By 2025, the total global retail eCommerce sales will amount to $7.4 trillion. This is a 50% growth forecast over the next four years of $4.9 trillion.
• eCommerce is estimated to be 19.6% of retail sales globally and will grow to 25% by 2025.
• The number of online buyers was 2.14 billion in 2021; note that this is a 162% rise since 2014.
• eCommerce through mobile devices has accounted for $3.5 trillion, making up 72.9% of total sales.
• Mobile retail in the USA is estimated to exceed $430 billion in 2022; twofold growth since 2019.
• In 2021, Walmart was the most used app in the USA with around 25 billion registered user sessions, this was followed by Amazon, and far behind were the SHEIN and eBay shopping apps.
• As for downloads, Amazon's online shopping app was installed on more than 25 million devices, while the Wish app followed with 5.49 million in the US alone.

To continue supporting the fact of the necessity of making a shopping app, here are some extra figures:

• Shoppers are prone to spend 3-4 times longer on mobile apps than on desktops.
• Customers tend to spend twice as much on mobile shopping apps than on mobile-responsive sites or websites.
• Conversion rates through shopping apps are the highest indicator at 21%, compared with 6% of mobile web.
• Cart abandonment rate is the lowest via mobile shopping apps with a 20% indicator; in their turn, desktop and mobile sites have rates of 68% and 90% respectively.

It is worth mentioning that this year, users spent 2.2 billion hours on shopping apps during Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping period. App Annie expects that this indicator will grow by 25% annually.

To sum things up: Shopping apps like Wish are in demand and growing. If you decide to create a shopping app now, your chances to succeed are very realistic, especially compared to the overcrowded social media and gaming markets.

We at MLSDev have vast experience in building shopping and eCommerce applications from scratch. Please take a look at our ongoing projects of success with thousands of users across 20+ US states.

Gopuff: Shopping & Delivery Application

The Gopuff app, which is shown above, is a shopping and on-demand delivery service that supplies its clients with office, party, and household essentials, snacks, drinks, frozen food, groceries, electronics, etc.

With a smart approach, professional technical support, and effective marketing strategy, you can create a shopping app that will make you a fortune.

Benefits You Receive Once You Make a Shopping App

In any business area, online shopping apps are a connector between a company and its clients. Indeed, the owners of offline stores should create their own apps, especially for goods categories including, but not limited to:

• Cosmetics & beauty products
• Clothes, accessories, & shoes
• Beverages and foods
• Sporting items and goods
• Kitchen equipment
• Household products
• Computer hardware
• Medication

The list can go on and on, but in any case, the business will receive the following benefits:

1. Definite increase in sales and user base - shopping apps are created to target new user groups and utilize the latest marketing strategies to improve sales.
2. Enhanced client loyalty - a branded shopping app makes your client’s life much easier with the ability to get more insights and analysis of user behavior as well as increase loyalty with personalized bonuses and discounts.
3. Great interaction with end-users - shopping apps can allow clients to leave their feedback and reviews, as well as become another communication tool for providing new product arrivals, etc.
4. Efficient internal business processes - making a shopping app properly can result in effective task management and control at a lower expense.

To make a successful shopping app, one should address the desire for constant product searches, relevant product recommendations, and the ability to buy goods at any time, any place, by any method.

Let’s now learn from some of the top players in shopping app development.

Best Mobile Shopping Apps in 2023 & Market Trends

The Wish app is one of the most interesting to look into when you think about making a sales app. The app is simple, yet functional.

According to Sensor Tower, it topped Amazon by a number of downloads and even approached Netflix a few years ago.

Most Used & Successful Shopping Apps Worldwide

Even still, your app shouldn't be a Wish clone. Instead, we recommend focusing on diversification.

To make this task easier, here is a list of the top 10 shopping apps, including Wish, for comparison:

Note: To create a shopping app that is almost as great as Amazon or Wish, consider the following factors:

1. Business specifics - prices, product pages, customer support, shipping options, loyalty programs, etc.
2. Technical features - order management, search, notifications, in-app customer support, voice shopping, cross-platform integration, etc.

Without a doubt, the Amazon shopping app is far superior with its 350 million products available via an app.

Amazon Shopping App

Technically, it features high-end perks like integration with Alexa and AR view, as well as cross-platform optimization. Building an app like Amazon would cost a fortune, since the calculations start at $230K and go up.

And yet, glitches in functionality sometimes drive customers away. Google Play reviews showcase the following:

Used to have no issues at all with this app, but suddenly it's buggy beyond words. Constant freezing, crashing, and error pages popping up without warning …

What does this teach us? Before deciding how to make a shopping app, consider this:

Even with an affluent inventory and cutting-edge tech, customers flee when your service doesn’t live up to its promise, or you have created a shopping app that is too complicated.

Doing less, on the contrary, may pay off, since people love simplicity. AliExpress is praised for its clarity:

This app is great, easy to use, and comprehensive.

Pro Tip: If you want to create a shopping app that is free of issues, make sure you hire a reliable tech vendor - then your app will have more chances to skyrocket in terms of income.

Article: Top 8 Proven App Monetization Strategies

Interesting fact: To create a shopping app that drives sales, remember that wealthy people are ready to pay more for exclusive services.

For example, an app like VIP Black offers its customers exclusive access to their high-end products and costs $1,000 just to install.

Another interesting example is the Amazon Prime program (paid membership) that now enlists over 95 million active users in the US alone, which is more than the number of users with a free membership.

What are the main takeaways from the info mentioned earlier?

• High-tech features should work flawlessly
• Users value simplicity over everything
• People will pay more for exclusive access to VIP services
• App speed does really matter
• Understand the value you want to deliver to your clients
• Customer care is the most important factor in shopping app development]
• Include gamification in the app to make it interesting and fun

Although the product range and service level is something that depends on you, we can help you by explaining how to create a shopping app technically. Your next step is the choice of primary and advanced features.

How to Make a Shopping App: Functionality & Tech Approaches

In your first estimation on the topic of how to make a shopping app, you should decide on both the primary and more profound tech features your customer may need.

Remember, not all apps similar to Wish implemented advanced functionality from the very beginning. Many started with simple features first.

Core Functionality to Create a Shopping App

As you prepare to create a shopping app, making your online store may seem like a grim undertaking. Here is a list of simple features you can start your project with:

• Authorization

App Sign Up via Social Networks

Customers hate inputting tons of personal information. If you want your shopping app to be successful, try to simplify everything. The best options are guest checkout or the ability to sign in with social media accounts. If you are interested in the functionality and tech specifics of social projects, check out the ultimate guide on How to Create a Social Media App.

• Push Notifications

If you want to create an app to sell products, notifications of upcoming sales, new arrivals, or cart replenishment may turn into a powerful sales booster. Notification functionality resembles the functionality of a chat app. You may follow the link to find out how to make a messaging app.

• Search & Catalog

What is the best shopping app? It’s the one that contains anything one could ever search for. This is easy to achieve with the three following features: filters, search result prompts, and suggestions. Even if a product is not in your inventory yet, a search result page prompting alternatives could be an ace up your sleeve.

• Ratings & Reviews

Products Reviews to Boost Sales

57% of shoppers make a purchase after they read other customer reviews; moreover, 91% of e-commerce buyers read reviews, and 84% trust a review as much as a friend's recommendation.

Sites like Wish and AliExpress fill their bills thanks to this feature.

When thinking about how to make a shopping app so that it turns into a platform for information exchange, offer your customers an opportunity to rate their experience right from the app, or invite them to leave a comment.

Interesting fact: According to Inc.com, ratings vary by culture. US citizens are more generous in sharing 5-star reviews compared to Europeans. Thus, Craig Boem advises subtracting a point from the American NPS (Net Promoter Score) variant if you are working with a European market and vice versa.

• Checkout Process

Top Reasons Why Shoppers Withdraw the Cart

Shopping apps or sites like Zulilly, Wish, etc, follow one rule: less is more. We recommend building your shopping cart with a one-step checkout. Aside from this, it should be fast and flawless, as 25% of customers will leave if they must re-enter shipping info.

• Payment Gateway

Thirty percent of customers disappear if payment info input takes too long. This is why apps and sites like AliExpress or other Wish alternatives invest quite a bit in ensuring a flawless payment process supported by different payment options.

• Customer Support

Multiple points of access to customer support are important in order to create a shopping app that beats competitors. An all-in-one shopping app should include different contact channels like social platforms, email, chat boxes, calls, etc. No matter which option a customer uses, a reply should come within 24 hours.

Advanced Features of Shopping Apps

Perhaps a couple of years from now, a shopping app will look nothing like today. When thinking about how to make a shopping app that stays popular, it is worth thinking about some advanced functionality that may drive customer flow in the future:

• Suggestions

What makes a shopping app like Wish successful is the system of shopping suggestions. The majority of free analytic services can help by analyzing customer needs and tastes. This allows an app to build a great suggestion system that will streamline your cross- and up-selling efforts.

• Wishlist

Even if you create a shopping app, launch it, and everything seems good - not all of your visitors will buy. People are reluctant. A wish list would be a great feature to include in your shopping app. With the ability to postpone a purchase, a customer is more likely to return to your app and finalize their shopping without a hassle.

• Shipping System

Sixty-three percent of customers will leave if shipping costs too much. As well, 36% are likely to cancel the purchase if shipping takes too long. However, the most annoying factor is a lack of information about the shipping status.

Great online shopping apps are not just about technology. A successful online app store has a reliable third-party shipping provider. If your day starts with thinking about how to make a shopping app, also consider how you'll provide high-quality delivery and different shipping options, and also include in-app access to the shipping status.

• AR & VR Shopping Option

Usage of Augmented Reality in a Shopping App

Augmented or virtual reality functionality is not yet a standard or easily affordable feature. The Amazon online application tries to make use of this technology, as there is a particular niche customer who'd be happy to see a 3D view of the product or to virtually "try it on" before purchase.

Check out the following guide for more information: How Much Does Augmented Reality App Development Cost?

• iBeacon

How Do Beacons Work

Some new shopping apps make use of iBeacon technology. iBeacon is a small device in the physical store that interacts with an app on a customer's mobile phone, collecting information about customer's locations, tastes, and interests.

This feature can bring you closer to profound personalized marketing, but only if you are thinking about how to make a shopping app for a well-developed chain of physical stores.

• Location Tracking

Since more than half of mobile owners use shopping apps to study products and later go to brick-and-mortar shops, recommending the nearest store based on location tracking would be an efficient UX booster. This a great feature that supports both online and offline merchandise. Thus, recommending the nearest store based on location tracking would be an efficient UX booster. A great feature that searches for the nearest store could support both online and offline merchandise sales. For extra information, check out our guide: How to Create a Location-Based App.

• Personal Assistant

Being able to see what a customer likes or needs can work wonders for your online store app with notifications on the products a customer has looked through, a history of prices, or any sort of updates.

A personal assistant works similarly to suggestion mechanisms, but requires a more profound data feed to build a personal offer for every customer. It is not a necessary feature if you want to build a shopping app like Wish, as the latter makes good with a simpler functionality. Yet, this should be food for thought for the future.

Admin Panel Features for Shopping Apps

Last but not least, it is crucial to make an admin panel for app management and control. The panel can collect customer insights and analytics for better content management and smooth app performance.

The following features could be included in your basic shopping app:

• Order execution - includes order summaries with payment details and can be used for order tracking, management, and adjustments.
• Client database - includes customer details like name, address, contacts, etc.
• Checkout process - includes all the checkouts that have been completed and those that were abandoned to remind customers to finish the process.
• Content management - includes everything that you fill your shopping app with, namely adding products, product categories, product descriptions with images, prices, titles, shipping details, etc.
• Inventory management - includes up-to-date information about the stock of products and associated updates.
• Customer management - includes analytics about customers, relationships with them, and tracks their behavior within the app.
• Extra marketing tools - includes tools for creating and measuring marketing activities for reaching new customers, sending personalized offers, discounts, and similar tasks.

Step by Step Process to Create a Shopping App

The following 10 steps should help you through the process of making a shopping app that sells.

10-Step Process to Create a Shopping App

It is vital to pay precise attention to each of these steps, namely:

1. Conduct market research & identify the problem

If you want to create a shopping app, offer a solution that makes life easier. For example, originally, Amazon helped people get books at affordable prices with just a click. Sites like Wish and AliExpress cover the need for profitable deals.

The issues your customers will love to have solved should be a starting point when thinking about how to make a shopping app.

2. Set your strategy, business goals, & expectations

What and how will you serve your customers? This is a tough question when thinking about creating a shopping app.

To better understand the scope of the forthcoming work, consider the following:

• App type and business model of the shopping app (B2B, B2C, C2C)
• Three main actions customers should complete while using the app
• Scenario of the first interaction with customers
• Decisions on how to make a shopping app technically (figure out suitable tech stack and tools, calculate development costs and timeline, evaluate the risks)
• App monetization strategy

3. Choose a shopping app development approach

Generally speaking, there are three methods you should consider while making a shopping app. You can use app builders, choose native app development, or opt for cross-platform development. Let’s discover more about each of these methods.

• 1. App Builders

There are lots of ready-made solutions available for creating a shopping app. These offer services with no coding experience, but with just simple drag & drop functionality. Indeed, this option is fast and cheap but does not really give you access to all the benefits.

App builders cannot offer you higher conversion rates, user loyalty, and increased sales. Templated apps simply cannot match your brand uniqueness or add customization to the interface and usability.

• 2. Native Apps

A native approach is defined as creating a shopping app for a specific operating system (iOS, Android) and taking the exact requirements into account. For instance, a developer will use Kotlin or Java programming language for Android app development. In its turn, Swift or Objective-C is used to create an iOS-based app.

Native apps are top-performing, the best at adapting to user needs, allows for creating advanced functionality, offer the greatest user experience, and are the easiest to support and scale with time. This is the classic and the most recommended way to create a shopping app. But, logically, this way is also the most expensive - it will cost around 30-40% more than cross-platform method, as you will need to hire 2 native app developers.

• 3. Cross-Platform or Hybrid App

This method allows you to make one shopping app operating on multiple operating systems and devices. Here, you should hire developers capable of working with ReactNative, Flutter, Xamarin, etc. In this way, the app created will unite the website at its core and will have an external shield made up of native platform elements.

Developing cross-platform apps is cheaper than native, but these have fewer functionality abilities, slower performance, and possible issues with maintenance and ongoing support.

If you want to check out some other details of native and cross-platform app development, feel free to check the article: Native App Development vs. Hybrid and Web App Building.

4. Find a proper software development vendor

To create a shopping app, decide on a team to hire. The market of development companies is growing, including cost-efficient IT software outsourcing company options, worth primary attention if you want to save in terms of your budget.

3-Step Process to Outsource Shopping App Development

Let’s briefly compare the options you have in order to create a shopping app:

• Freelance developer

If you are contemplating how to hire a developer to make an app with a limited budget, shopping app developers on freelance may seem attractive, although no one can guarantee protection from risks, extended deadlines, additional costs, or unexpected blockers.

You may calculate the cost of this option by multiplying a freelancer’s rate by the time needed for app development. According to Upwork, the hourly rate of a freelance developer ranges from $20 to $99.

• Dedicated team

When hiring a dedicated development team to create a shopping app, you can expect an exact budget calculation, risk analysis, and commitment.

To keep the collaboration crystal clear, before each stage, the team should provide an estimate and timeline (sometimes it can be rough, depending on the project complexity). Further, the client can be guided by up-to-date feedback on the progress.

Benefits of Dedicated Development Team Model

5. Define your shopping app functionality

When you create a shopping app, start with the essential features that make up a solid product that broadcasts value to the end-shopper.

These days users are spoiled and used to getting the top service and user experience. Therefore, make your app’s quality, performance, and user experience a top priority.

A well-designed and developed digital product allows you to test the online shop application among real users and receive the necessary feedback to start competing with rival products.

6. Create a professional UX/UI design

Design Screens of the McDonald’s Baltics App

User-centered design is essential for your app’s success. To achieve this, follow the requirements of the Android and iOS guidelines. As you may know, these mobile operating systems dominate the market and almost 100% of users either use an iPhone device or one that operates on Android OS.

Consider the fact that shopping apps like Wish are mostly designed following 2-tap or 5-point rules, meaning it should take just two taps to get what a user wants, and the interface shouldn't have more than five core design elements.

7. Test, deploy, & launch the application for shopping

Deployment shows if your efforts in creating a shopping app have managed to bear fruit.

50% of success in this stage goes to the proper quality assurance and testing, which requires integrating analytic tools, beta-testing of the product on production, and collecting metrics once the app has been launched.

8. Roll out marketing campaigns to promote your online shop

Launching an app on the App Store and Google Play is the first real step. Though, only 10% of apps are widely used and actively installed.

Updated App Showcase in the App Store

To increase your chances, you may need to:

• apply the app store optimization (ASO) practices

What is ASO

• Work on communication and distribution channels (e.g. marketing via social media, press releases, participation in events, etc.)
• Create a landing page
• Market your app idea to early adopters via specialized sites like PreApps

9. Collect & analyze feedback from app users

You shouldn’t just pin your hopes on questions like how to start your own shopping app , but also consider how you will manage and improve its performance.

: App Metrics and KPIs to Check

Collecting real-life user feedback, both from analytic tools and customer reviews, is necessary to improve the functionality to outperform your users’ expectations.

10. Ongoing shopping app support & new functionality

With tons of new apps, you can't expect to get ahead if you do not please your customers with new features, updates, and app improvements.

The best mobile shopping apps guarantee a hassle free user-experience 24/7.

Required Timeline & Budget to Create a Shopping App

How much does it cost to create a shopping app and how much time could it take? To save your time and effort we have broken things down in the following summary.

The cost of a shopping app can vary from $5,000 to $300,000+ depending on the tech stack, development approach (custom, cross-platform, with the help of ready-made software, etc), and many other factors.

Here is a table that presents the costs of custom shopping app development depending on the feature-set, complexity of UX/UI design, and the number of platforms. The basic shopping app version may cost around $60,000 and be built within 3-5 months.

If you decide to build a custom app, a reliable software development company will walk you through the project phases you will have to go through, which will also help you better understand the price.

To create a shopping app, you will need to allocate a budget that will cover the services involved in application development. At MLSDev, we break custom product development into two major phases, which include the following activities and services:

Discovery stage:

• Business analysis
• UX/UI design
• Software architecture planning
• Project management
• Team review

Development stage:

• Early planning (1-2 week period, 1st development sprint)
• Development
• Quality assurance and testing
• Project management
• Team review

Custom Software Development Process to Create a Shopping App

Note: When thinking about how to make a shopping app from a financial standpoint, make sure you discuss all the project phases with a vendor in advance.

At the very beginning, it is really hard to provide a precise project estimate and understand the exact app cost and timeline. The most influential factors that determine the final cost to build an app are the following:

• Vendor type and location
• Complexity and number of app features
• Back-end infrastructure and connected APIs
• Complexity of UX/UI design
• Inclusion of additional branded visual elements
• Development approach (native, mobile web, hybrid, etc.)
• Number of platforms to be developed (iOS, Android, Web, etc.)

It is very important to understand these specifics and choose a reliable software developer in order to create a shopping app successfully.

Full Guide to Understanding App Development Cost

To conclude: There is a fundamental truth behind the choice of the tech approach: with the proper choice of vendor, and clear-set communication and collaboration, you may expect a successful project outcome.

The MLSDev team works by following a dedicated team model and 10+ years of experience. Along with a client, we first elaborate on the project, then continue with a discovery stage, and further with the app development stage. Our team advises that you focus on unique values and scale up according to the demand of the audience.

Frequently Asked Questions: