Fashion Ecommerce Mobile App Development Cost & Key Features

Last Updated on January 21, 2022

Ecommerce apps have been the heart and soul of several companies and brands as they have been minting money even during the lockdown period. To keep the sales afloat and keep up with fashion, the brand owners have come up with this unique idea of reaching out to customers via fashion ecommerce mobile apps and stores and flooding them with all sorts of products and offers.

Retail therapy is the best therapy and people have been missing it for quite some time during the lockdown, however, as soon as the lockdown ended, so did the sales of these online fashion shopping mobile apps as well. The delivery system led to an increase in sales of the big brands and people started shopping more online, than going to the stores. The pandemic inculcated a fear of stepping out among people all over the world. Therefore, everyone started turning to these online shopping apps for buying clothes and accessories.

This industry has always been very lucrative for shoppers and there has been an immense growth in the usage of these fashion mobile app stores. Almost all brand has opened up their online shopping stores through their apps and each day there are new additions to it. This gives users a wide variety of apps to choose from.

Technology has given a push to the online sales of the brands as almost everyone is using a smartphone these days. And what can be better than shopping at the convenience of your home? From small homegrown brands to luxurious brands, everyone is in the favour of having their own mobile applications for selling fashion products and accessories. There are aggregator fashion apps as well, that feature product of various brands under their platform.

Intro to Fashion Store Mobile Apps

Who doesn’t like to keep updated with the latest trends in the fashion industry? The society has built such pressure on people where they want to look the best at all places. People have been relying on ecommerce apps for this purpose. It is easy to shop form retail apps than going to the stores and buying new clothes and accessories each time.

The users can now find an online app for almost all brands or can use apps like Amazon and Myntra for looking at and comparing various brands on one platform. This helps them look at several products at the same time and make better decisions.

From amongst the several apps that are available on the play store and app store, users have to initially download and install the app that pleases them the most. Or maybe the app of a particular brand they have been loyal to. Then they have to register themselves on the app, enter the address, and start browsing through the various categories that are available for the purchase of products.

A cart is available for all users, wherein they can keep storing the products they like and then checkout directly from there. With the help of integrated modes of payments, users can then make an online payment either through online banking, debit, or credit cards, or maybe via the e-wallets that they have registered themselves on.

The entire process is quite simple and engaging. There are a plethora of categories for shopping that are available in a fashion mobile app store.

How Do Fashion Mobile Apps Work?

The fashion mobile apps work as a platform connecting either wholesaler with the manufacturers and dealers or the brands directly with the customers. In certain cases, it removes the middlemen by linking the sellers directly with the customers. There are three important kinds of eCommerce mediums through which these apps function, the most common being Business to Customers (B2C).

Businesses or brands either get their own apps made and put up all their products under various categories on the app. Customers can easily search for the products under any of the categories and buy it via paying through that platform. Another way of putting up your products on sale is by getting in touch with multi-vendor platforms, which integrate a number of brands under its entity. They will list your brand name under the category on the website. This allows you to sell your products on a bigger platform.

Benefits of Fashion Mobile App Stores to Customers

It is very important for all brands to have their presence on the app platform, because more than going to the stores, people rely on online shopping and apps have become the new source of shopping for people. Here are some advantages of fashion mobile app stores to consumers:

1. Convenience to Shoppers

Users can easily shop from the convenience of their homes without even having to step out. They can simply download an app, make their account, and start using it directly from the first day itself. The UI of the machine is made in a way that helps the users understand the basic functioning of the app and the VR and AR are used to enhance their experience. While stores attract only a limited number of customers, shopping apps have a large user base and you can reach the people who are not even in proximity to the store or don’t have the access to any of the stores situated in big cities.

2. Offers & Discounts

Users are intimated well in advance about any offers or discounts that they will run in the coming time. This will help them save their time, effort, and price that they might have spent on commuting to the store, looking for a product, and purchasing it at the same cost.

3. Constant Reminders

Users keep getting updates on the latest collection updated on the app. This helps them know what is in trend and if it has changed during the season. Also, the users are sent a notification if a new collection has been added to the stocks. The users get pop up notifications on their screens with any important information about the product.

4. Fere Fashion Consultant

While customers might have hard timing finding help in the stores while shopping in person from malls or directly from big stores. In the case of online or app shopping, they are provided with constant support either through the in-app chat feature or in-app call feature. These shopping apps create their experience worthwhile.

5. Useful Filters

Customers do not have to browse a lot through all categories but jump directly to the category they want to see through the filters provided on the app. This helps them save a lot of time shopping.

Why Fashion Brands Prefer Their Own Fashion eCommerce Mobile App?

While the multi-vendor apps might seem lucrative from the outside, you might just get lost with the other brands as people might just find something better or something that fulfills their requirements more than your product does. In this case, it is always better to get a separate app made for your own brand or retail store. We are linting some reasons that might lure you into getting a distinct app just for your brand:

1. No Competition

Since only your brand products are going to be displayed on the app, the users are likely to be less distracted and shop only what they see. This will help you increase sales and get direct and loyal customers. Also, this doesn’t give them a chance to look at similar products on the platform.

2. Data Analytics

A fashion brand app for a particular brand helps them get information about each user that is registering and looking up for apparel and accessories on your app. These brands are likely to understand the likes and preferences of their users with the help of data analytics, and later recommend them products that are of importance to them, rather than flooding their phones with promotional messages of unwanted products.

3. Audience Feedback

The brands that have their presence in the app world are always open to opinions and feedback, as it helps them serve their customers better. A support team is always there to assist the customers and help them make purchasing an easy task.

4. Target Customers

App owners or the retail outlet owners can generate demographics which state the age of people that are shopping maximum from their app and their gender. Based on these findings, they can target their audience and customers to get maximum returns. Trying to sell your product to everyone might just make you one out of the lot, meanwhile setting demographics might help you stand out of the crowd as you would be reaching only those people who are looking for the products you have got to offer through your mobile application.

5. Revenue Growth

To gain trust in your customers is the ultimate achievement of any eCommerce application. All fashion brands want their customers to stay loyal and keep returning to them for purchasing every time they want to buy fashion apparel and accessories. By maintaining the trust of your consumers and giving them a sense of belonging, you might as well see growth in loyal customers and a spike in revenue. Customers can get a personal feel while shopping online as they are assisted with help 24*7 which makes them more comfortable with the brand.

6. Special Offers and Discounts

To make the shopping experience more enticing, the brands should consider offering special discounts and promotions to their loyal customers. This will help them increase their customer base and get a good word of mouth. Anniversaries and birthdays are special occasions to offer discounts to customers.

7. Marketing

Since a brand can know about the preferences and taste of each of their customers, they can easily send them recommendations of the products that match their search criteria. This way they will not be bombarded with useless advertisements of products that are of no interest or use to them.

Types of Fashion eCommerce Mobile App Stores

1. Single Vendor Fashion Mobile App

These are the virtual stores that allow the customers to purchase directly from the website or the app by selecting products and making payments online. This one is a business to customer model. In these, the brands make up their separate apps that are solely dedicated to their brand and sell products only under their brand name.

2. Multivendor Fashion Mobile App

This one is like Amazon, Myntra, and other big apps that house a majority of brands and let anyone start their business by selling products under a brand name. It is a platform that brings together a number of brands under one single roof. Users can simply log into their accounts and start browsing for the products of any brand of their choice, provided the brand has put up their products for sale on the platform.

3. Business to Business (B2B)

This includes the exchange of products between two business owners. This mainly includes manufacturers, retailers, wholesalers, and traders.

4. Customer to Customers (C2C)

These platforms involve only customers who sell their products to other customers on the app. One of the major examples of the same is eBay.

Reasons that Might Lure You to Invest in a Fashion Mobile App

The fashion industry has always been going a step ahead of what we think. Even during the pandemic, when the countries were imposing lockdown, people were spending hours gazing at the products offered on the fashion and shopping apps. The society has built pressure on everyone to stay in trend. This has given a rise to several new fashion mobile app stores, and there are a number of options available on the Play Store and App Store.

Ecommerce has been flourishing and has seen a steady rise in downloads and installs in the app world. Some of the top-performing apps on the app store are that of fashion. There has been an immense rise in eCommerce apps.

The Fashion and Apparel Industry Report stated that the revenue generated by the eCommerce fashion industry was $ 481.2 billion in 2018 worldwide, which is expected to grow to $ 712.9 billion until 2022.

Take a look at the graphical representation of the growth in the industry worldwide year wise:

It is believed that the consumer’s buying power will go high in the coming years and it is projected that the number of users will go up to 1.2 billion by the end of this year (2020).

Take a look at the expected CAGR of the industry between 2017 to 2020 in three different countries:

• 14.1 percent in China
• 8.8 percent in the U.S.
• 8.7 percent in Europe

Popular Online Fashion Stores in the US 2018 as Per Net Sales

Popular Fashion Mobile Apps & Online Stores Across the Globe

Some of the popular fashion mobile apps and online stores are:

• Poshmark
• ASOS
• Mango
• Thred UP
• Finery London
• Zulily
• Wish
• Zara
• Gilt
• Kidizen
• H & M
• ShopStyle

What Makes a Fashion Mobile App Successful?

Well, if you think making a fashion app and get it sailing is a cakewalk, you are not thinking in the right direction. There is a team of technicians, fashion experts, app developers, among others who build this app and look into each detail of the app minutely. It might take you years, months, days to make a suitable and competitive fashion mobile app. Here are some points that can help you make a successful fashion mobile app:

1. Friendly and Self-Intuitive UX UI

The best way to make an appealing eCommerce app is by developing an app that is easy to use and understand. The more complex the design, the lesser people would like to use it. Therefore, the UI and UX should be used to create an app that can be managed by each person themselves because of its simplicity.

2. Importance of Photography and Videography

People who are purchasing products online are restricted to see the actual color of the product and are not able to try it or feel the fabric. Therefore, it is important for the app owners or the brands to upload high-resolution pictures that can be zoomed in to its maximum capacity by the users. Also, videos of models wearing fashion apparel and accessories should be of high quality. This helps users make quicker and easy decisions.

3. Product Details and Care Guide

Each product is different and the details of each one of them vary according to the material used in making and the stitching, etc. Therefore, each item that is displayed on the app should carry ample information about the product making it easier for the buyers to understand the product better. This will help the users be clear about the product they are buying and special instructions for taking care of it if required.

4. Free Shipping and Insurance

You should assure your customers of providing their customers with insurance for the products bought by them. Another thing that is extremely important is that the brands should allow free shipping on orders over a certain spending limit. This will lure customers to purchase more so that they can avail the free shipping service.

5. Provide Fashion Consultant

While the customers purchasing a product might not be sure what to team it up with, he might seek suggestions about what other product to buy with it that will make it a complete package. For the same purpose, all fashion apps should appoint fashion consultants who sort out fashion-related queries of the users.

6. Offer Try and Buy Facility

Since many customers are still old school and don’t like buying products without trying them on, there should be an option to try at home for them. This allows them to open the package and try it before sending the delivery boy back. If the delivered product is of heir choice and fit, they might as well keep it, else return it to the sender’s address.

7. Custom and Personalized Packaging

Not every customer who is buying a product from your app is buying it for himself. He might want to gift it to someone on some occasion. The brands should therefore ensure to provide them with customizable and more personalized packaging.

8. One Hundred Percent Return Policy

To build trust amongst your customers and make them happy, you must try to introduce the 100 percent return policy. This will help customers make easy decisions as there will be no fear of returning or exchanging it in case it is an ill-fitted product or the quality is not up to the mark.

General Features of Fashion Mobile App

Customer Panel Features

• Social sign-up/sign-in
• Browse and filter products
• View offers and discounts
• View loyalty programs
• View product details and reviews
• Add product to cart
• Apply discount code
• Add product to wishlist
• Real-time shipment tracking
• Multiple payment options
• Earn reward points
• In-app wallet and integration with 3rd party e-wallets
• Apply for return/exchange of products
• Rate and give reviews for products
• Create a support ticket
• Live chat support
• Personalized product suggestions
• Manage profile
• Manage push notifications

Fashion Merchant/Store Owner Panel Features

• Register and login
• Manage brand profile and setup stores
• Manage product catalog & orders
• Run product promotions and campaigns
• Manage support tickets
• View reports, metrics & analytics
• Accept online payments
• Automatic adjustment of inventory on a product sale
• View user reviews and ratings
• Push notification & alerts

Admin Panel Features

• Secure login with via email
• View admin dashboard
• Manage customers/merchants
• Manage ad campaigns
• Manage product categories
• Manage promotions/rewards/points
• Manage payments
• Manage customer support
• Manage referral/invites
• Manage marketing and distribution channels

Advance Features to Have in a Fashion Shopping App to Stay Ahead of the Competition

While all apps are equipped with the basic features needed in a fashion shopping app store, you can try to make the customer experience exclusive by offering them some advanced features as mentioned below:

1. Social Sign Up and Login

The registration process of the mobile shopping apps should be easy and integrated with social media so that the users do not have to enter their details over and over again. It is important for each user to have his separate account to save his preferences, offers, discounts, and billing details. Login should also be a one-click process via social media sites like Facebook and Gmail.

2. Push Notifications

A fashion app is one of the most used apps in most people’s phones as retail therapy is actually a thing. Although people might open and scan the app every once in a while, it is important for the app owners to keep their customers informed about the latest offers, launch of the new collection, and other such important information with the help of push messages.

3. Chatbot Support

This feature has become the lifeline of any mobile application these days. You should have a separate chatbot integrated into the app so that the users can chat and clarify their doubts with them when in need.

4. Smart Search

This is also known as an instant search that helps the users in pacing up their skills in searching for a product. They can simply give a voice command to look for a product or put an image in the image box so that they are directly redirected to the page of that product.

5. In-app camera

The in-app camera gives access to the users to directly view the product on them. In the case of certain apps, the users might be able to try on a product on themselves virtually and see how it looks on them. This needs access to the camera for clicking a picture of the customer and updating it on their profile.

6. Efficient Content Management System

You should have a content management system that is compatible with almost all devices. This enables the admin to make changes to the CMS, which then reflects across platforms and devices.

7. Effective CRM system

Customer relationship management software supports the brand’s interaction with the customers.

8. Loyalty Programs

While going to stores can be fun when you get the points you collected by shopping products of a brand in your shopping card of that particular brand. Apps also offer several loyalty programs that build the interest of the customers in buying products from that brand all the time.

9. Real-Time Dashboards and Analytics

The personalized dashboard helps the admin gain insight into the abilities of your app and the number of customers that are browsing on the app, and the exact number of them who are purchasing the products. This also helps in giving out information on the traffic drawn by the app.

10. Multiple Payment Options

With everything coming online, payments have become easier and smoother. There are multiple online mediums of making payments successfully. These payment methods include the likes of debit and credit cards, online banking, or through any of the e-Wallets available online these days.

11. Multi-Lingual and Currency Support

Your customers might not only be from a single country, but foreigners can also be drawn towards the products you sell on your fashion shopping app store. It is for them to understand the information on your app should be available in different languages and you should be able to accept currencies of various countries.

12. PIM Integration

PIM is an acronym for Product Information Management. It saves all the data of an app in one place and organizes that data properly.

13. Order Management Integration

A brand might receive several orders in an hour or a day from their app. There might be a number of customers making purchases from the platform at a single time. Therefore, this arises the need for integrating order management in your app, so that it is segregated automatically making it easy for the store owners and the admin.

14. Tax Management

All products have a certain amount of tax levied upon them. The tax percentage should be entered into the system, which allows the tax implementation automatically through the central system on each product during the time of billing. The users should be given detailed information on the tax imposed on the product they are buying.

15. Marketing and Promotion Tools

An app should be able to integrate features that help the users and admin to promote it on various platforms. The integration of social media allows users to directly share the links of any product with their friends.

How Augmented Reality Powered Fashion Apps Increase Conversions?

The basis of any fashion shopping app store is conversions and the number of products that are being sold on a daily basis. It is very important to make the app interesting and appealing to the users enhancing their experience and offering them something new and exciting altogether. With technology growing leaps and bounds, we have witnessed the rise in the use of Augmented Reality (AR) in mobile applications. It does not only help retailers generate more sales but helps improve their marketing strategies significantly.

With the help of AR, consumers can make easy decisions about making purchases by trying on the products of a brand. The online shopping apps have come up with virtual trial rooms where the user can upload an image of himself and try on a product virtually. Similarly, users can also try on jewelry and other accessories items from their favorite brand’s shopping app. This will help a user make the decision of buying a product if he/she is skeptical about the fitting of the color of the product. Also, there are higher chances of conversions in this case scenario.

Tech Stack Required for Fashion Mobile App Development

An app development company should be careful about choosing a tech stack for the development of a fashion shopping app store. It should be decided to keep in mind the long term goals of the retailers and the app owners. Here is a list of the tech stack that should be considered for a shopping app:

• Front end technologies
• Back end technologies: Ruby on Rails, Express/Koa/Sails (Node.js), Django, PHP MVC frameworks, Google Firebase
• Payment gateways: Braintree, PayPal, and Stripe
• Analytics tools: Hotjar, KISSmetrics, Woopra, and Piwik
• Shipping modules: Shipstation, Shipoo, FedEx, and Shipping Easy
• CRM: Zoho, InforFlo, and Microsoft Dynamics
• Social networks
• Multi-vendor stores: Nchanne and Sellbrite
• Shopping cart software
• Social media channels: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, and Instagram

How to Make Use of Cloud Platforms for Smooth Functioning?

If you want your app to look appealing and be finished on time, you must know how to minimize the time spent on it by the IT management. This can be done with the help of using two platforms namely PaaS and MBaas.

Here are the Advantages of Using PaaS

• The APIs can easily be integrated and the database resources can be added along with using the tools in DevOps. This will enhance the performance of your website on any browser easily.
• Since there is a lot to focus on in the development phase, the rest of the things including cloud infrastructure, middleware, operating system, and runtime environment can all be managed by PaaS at the same time.

While PaaS is exclusively for the web, the MBaaS platform enhances the functionality of mobile apps. Listed below are some of its advantages:

• With the use of this effective platform, you can scale up the performance of the app.
• There are a lot of features like managing the users and sending out push notifications that can be managed with the help of this platform.
• APIs can also be integrated very easily through this.
• You can spend minimum time on building the backend of your app as that work can also be managed by the platform itself.

Considering PWA for Online Fashion Business

A PWC is a Progressive Web Application that offers a similar experience to that of native apps. If you are already doing well on the web and have a huge customer base, it must not be a problem for you to convert your e-commerce website app with minimum effort. The PWC’s are gaining recognition these days because of its ability to compete with big apps. This has been gaining prominence because of its ability to bring high speed, good experience, and speedy conversions. The user experience has also gotten enhanced with this new technology. These web applications offer the following advantages:

• They take minimum time in loading on the device’s network, therefore there are more reliable and less data consuming.
• Users will instantly big goodbye to a web page or an app that takes forever in loading. In the case of a PWA, you are assured of the speed of the web app as it loads instantly without making you wait for long.
• Like in the case of native apps and other traditional apps, the PWA offers an experience like no other. Users are properly and timely informed about new offers and products through push notifications.

Development Team Required for a Fashion Shopping App Store

Finally, after all the planning and thinking, the brands have to get in touch with the Mobile app development companies for building a competitive team that can build an aggressive team to work on the development of the app. Here are the personnel required for developing an app:

• Project Manager
• UI/UX designers
• Web developers
• Front end developers
• Back end developers
• Android developers
• iOS developers
• Testers
• Quality Analysts
• DevOps engineers

Development Process of a Fashion Mobile App Store

The development process of each fashion app store might be different from each other. While some might be developed easily based on simple steps, some might take months of the development phase. It completely depends upon the features and content of the app. Here are some easy steps in making a shopping app store:

1. Market Research

Before dwelling into the development process, you should conduct market research and know what your customers are looking for in an app of your brand. You should know the kind of products they want to buy online and if they are loyal enough to look you up on Amazon and buy products only from your brand.

2. Features

Secondly, it is vital to choose the feature that the users are seeking in your app. Adding features that are of no use to them might just not work in your favor at times. Therefore, only the most essential features should be added to make the app look clean and straight forward.

3. Develop MVP

Thirdly, you can consider developing an MVP while you are still in the initial phase as that will require you to invest a minimum amount in the development of the app.

4. Implementing the Design

Create a design for the app that will have a long-lasting app for the users. A congested and half-baked app with improper background might not even see the light of the day. Therefore, choosing and developing a design can be a task, but stands amongst the most important steps in app development.

5. Choose a Platform

You should be clear about the platform you want to launch your app on. It is for a single platform like Android or iOS, or you want to run it across platforms? The development process of the app will change accordingly.

6. App Management

Launching the app in the Play Store or the App Store is not the end of the process. Maintaining the app and making proper and timely updates are also necessary.

Cost of Developing a Fashion Mobile App Store

Before the planning of any app, a brand should be able to estimate the cost of the entire development process of the app. Although it is tough to claim a set figure for the development of the app, you can state a rough estimate of approximately how much app development will cost.

There are several aspects that contribute to the cost calculation of the app development process. Listed below are some of them:

• The geographical location of the app developers
• App development personnel working on the project
• Time spent on developing the app
• Number of hours spent on the project
• Number of features integrated into the app
• UI/UX and the design of the app

Conclusion

While fashion shopping apps have seen a fast-paced growth, what has equally grown is the amount of time invested in these apps. Only the best professionals can develop a competent fashion app store today as there are several such apps that have already hit the bull’s eye. However, the urge of developing more such apps is on a rise after witnessing visible growth in the industry. If you own a brand and want to convert your sales through apps, you should get in touch with an app development agency, that will introduce you to some of the most talented personnel to work on your project to give you the desired results.