How To Create An App Like Amazon

Cost To Build An App Like Amazon In 2021 (Cost, Features, Business Model, etc.)

Are you impressed with an ecommerce app like Amazon? It is fair enough to say that marketplace apps like Amazon, have taken the online shopping experience to the next level by integrating emerging technologies like AI, VR, AR, and voice commands in-app.

With the company's net revenue amounted to $280.5 Billion in 2019, it has not just become one of the leading tech giants but also inspiring startups and entrepreneurs to invest in this eCommerce mobile apps.

In recent years, the boom of marketplace apps has reached another level and opened endless opportunities for the business of all scales. If you are still in doubt whether investing in ecommerce app like Amazon will be a worthy decision or not, then you need to have a look over these market statistics:

Key Statistics and Facts About the Usage and Revenue Generated by Ecommerce Mobile Apps:

According to the Survey, US consumers were increasingly relying on online shopping and projected that 95% of purchases will be made online by 2040.
A survey report has revealed that 68% of women say that they consider product reviews before making a purchase and 56% will look at social media pages for the product advice.
With the exponential growth in internet and digital population of 687.6 Million in India and an active e-commerce penetration of 74%, it is estimated that online retail market size will be $73 Billion.

The sudden boom of the Ecommerce industry is the silent death of physical retail. According to the eMarketer report, in 2019, US retail ecommerce spending will rise 13.2% to $135.35 billion and forecast that total US retail sales will reach the trillion-dollar holiday season for the first time ever with a 3.8% increase to $1.008 trillion.

According to the survey, 48% of online shoppers usually overspent or bought something they haven't planned shopping online. And it is noticed that 85% of consumers start their shopping from one device and end it to another.
Users would be more likely to shop from the stores that offers you personalised coupons, recommendations based on what they have searched earlier or what their friends are buying.

By 2021, experts estimate that US mobile commerce sales will eclipse $420 billion as the conversion rate from mobile apps are three times higher than mobile sites.

To wrap up these stats and figures, it is worth mentioning that technology has changed the way people shop and ecommerce is up and poised for further growth. But the success of the application lies in the way you construct it. So if you are finally impressed to develop an app like Amazon, the first question that strikes your mind is "how to develop it and how much does it cost you?".

Here are the key factors that can help you determine the steps of Amazon App Clone:

Research and Planning: Discovering the market scope, Budget and latest technologies
Choice of Operating System: Native or Cross-Platform
Must-Have Features To Develop an App Like Amazon
UX/UI Design of the App: Wireframing and Prototyping
Final Cost to Develop an Ecommerce App Like Amazon

However, before getting into the deep of these points, it is essential to understand the factors that are contributing to the success of Amazon app…

Things To Keep In Mind While Developing an Ecommerce App Like Amazon

Ecommerce development always involves a complex structure. Since there are lots of things to consider, it is better to leave the job with the reputed mobile app development company. But, still there few factors that affect the success of the Amazon:

Easy navigation of the app with the well-defined categorization of the products and appealing visuals leads to better user experience.
Amazon is not a replica of any ecommerce app, so apart from following the Amazon app clone, it is essential to make your app idea unique and inspiring.
Instead of creating a duplicate copy of the app, explore the other applications, select their pros, understand their cons and develop a high-end finished product like Amazon.
Pre-decide the communication flow with the development team, vendors, employees, stakeholders and customers as ecommerce apps like Amazon have a highly complex structure.
Based on your budget, choose the right platform for managing an application and pick the best features to meet the future needs of the users.

Here are the embedded techniques that Amazon employes in the app:

Customer Tracking is one of the major strongholds of Amazon to offer a personalised shopping experience.
Its multi-levelled ecommerce strategy allows almost anyone to sell anything using this platform.
Amazon is running on Linux-based core technology with the world's large database capacity.
The central Amazon data warehouse of Amazon is made up of 28 Hewlett Packard Servers.
Since millions of users used to enter their credit card details to this app, therefore, Amazon employs Netscape Secure Commerce Server using the SSL protocol to offer excellent security.

Apart from these, there are several technologies, tools and methodologies that Amazon combines in the app to offer a completely satisfactory experience to the users. So you can choose to hire an app development company experienced in developing ecommerce apps like Amazon. But, being highly revenue-generating app , many of you are still curious to know what steps it takes to develop and how much it costs you.

Key Aspects of Building an Ecommerce App Like Amazon

1. Research and Planning to Create an App Like Amazon

Many of you are curious to get straight into the development process, but keep in mind that soon it can be turned into the biggest blunder if proper research and planning is not carried out.

So here are the few points that help you understand what exactly you need and what you are trying to achieve through the app:

The key to success is to start by analysing customer's behaviour, their needs and requirements.
Determine what kind of product you are trying to sell and expectations of the users?
If you are trying to sell multiple items, then categorize the items in well-defined columns, so customers can easily find the desired products.
Perform market research and gather feedback from your targeted audience to avoid making frequent changes in the coding as the developer will charge you hourly fees that can go up to hundreds of dollars depending upon the experience of the developer and quality of the project.
Being a startup, it is best to keep the development cycle as short as possible. Try to develop an app with Minimum Viable Product or MVP to keep the development cost at the lower side.
Determine what type of technologies you need to integrate?
Decide your budget and understand where to launch your application?

If you choose to hire mobile app developer for the app development, then usually they will take up 100–120 hours to complete this phase of the development, and it can easily exceed, depending upon the complexity of the app.

2. Choose the Operating System: Native or Cross-Platform

The next stage of your app development is to decide whether you want to target users on a particular platform or prefer targeting a large number of users through multiple platforms. The prominent choices in the market are Google Play Store and Apple App Store and both of them are in high demand nowadays. But now the central question is how you will decide the right choice of platform to launch your application?

Here are the few factors that help you understand what is the best choice of operating platform to launch your app:

Firstly, determine your clients as it is a well-accepted fact that rich people own iPhones whereas middle-class customers go for Android. So decide, whether you are targeting a wealthy class that is willing to pay for the app or you are targeting middle-class customers that prefer to access free apps?
Understand the geolocation of the customers. Android influences the world but iOS rules in North America and Europe.
The last thing you need to keep in mind is the time it takes to develop an App. Since Android has many variants and due to its open-source nature, every company makes a few tweaks in it before launching an Android app for a new device. While developing an Android app for multiple devices is tricky, but keep in in mind that Android apps have the broadest reach. On the other hand, Apple Applications are fast to develop, as it offers a modern platform and has a handful of devices.

If you are following the Amazon App clone, then it is essential to launch the app on both platforms (iOS and Android). But the average cost to develop two native apps will cost you approx $50,000+, whereas creating a cross-platform app will help you target multiple platforms and cost you less than $50,000.

3. Must-Have Features To Develop an App Like Amazon

Features and functionality of the app is the only factor that decides the future scope of the app. So instead, making your app look too fancy that seems to be hard to access, it is worth it to make a simple app that is easy to use and automatically convert the visitor into a potential customer.

So here's the list of features that you need to consider while developing an app like Amazon:

Simple Registration & Social Login: Make your app registration process as simple as it is possible and allow users to signup the account with their email and mobile number. Also, allow them to access the app with social accounts.

Push Notifications: App notifications and alerts are a valuable part of the app as it helps companies by keeping engaging more customers within the app and keeping them informed about the latest offers and special discounts.

Accurate Filters and Search Bars: Allow users to identify the desired products by only using multiple filters like cost, product category, feature products, by ratings and more.

Real-Time Order Tracking and History: Order tracking will help users to understand the exact location of their order. And a track record of history will help in putting reorders without exploring the products from the scratch.

Multiple Payment Options: Make sure your app is integrated with multiple payment options including Cash on Delivery, Credit/Debit card, google play and more.

Easy Check-Out: The quick checkout procedure will enable customers to perform an order with the required information and quickly check out the profile and automatically arranges the transportation and billing addresses for the customer.

Category Management: This feature will help in arranging different types of products under well-defined categories and in the proper hierarchy.

Offers and Discount Management: Add this feature to segregate the discounted products in a defined category and help users to find the best suitable product easily.

Feedback and Support: This feature will allow you to determine where you need to improve and on what things you need to work on.

The list of features is not ending here. There are several advanced features that you need to look for to develop an app like Amazon. They include AI & Machine Learning, Virtual Assistant, Chatbot, Augmented Reality, voice commands and more to add an advanced level of functioning. If you find it complicated, then it is worth hiring app developer that can quickly help you develop an app that perfectly meets the needs of tomorrow.

4. UX/UI Design of the Mobile App

App design is the first thing that attracts users and encourages them to spend more time within the app. However, many of the developers make the app design too complicated to understand, that users feel hard to access the functionality. Therefore, make sure you choose soothing colours, schemes and visuals that give a pleasant experience to the user.

Keep in mind that easy and effective UI design is the USP for Amazon, which plays a crucial role in holding customers until the checkout process.

So here are the three design factors that you majorly need to focus:

App prototype design
App UX/UI design
Colour and Appearance

One should hire mobile app developers from the reputed software development firm to make the best out of them.

5. Final Cost of Developing an App Like Amazon

If the truth to be told, then there is no calculator that helps you calculate the exact cost of the app development as every business has different demand and app development cost is influenced by different factors. However, still with the careful evaluation of the entire process, one can determine the closer estimation of the final cost.

So here are the major factors that contribute to the cost of the app development:

Development team which includes below experts:

Project manager
App developers
UX/UI designers
Back-end Developers
Front-end Developers
QA expert

The average hourly cost to hire app developers is ranging from $15 to $50 in Dubai, Middle East, India, etc due to the high rate of competition among app development companies. But if you are planning to outsource the development team from the USA and UK, the average hourly price to hire app developers can be $100 to $200.

UX/UI Design of the App

The price of developing the design of the app is usually depending upon the complexity, features and size of the app. Usually, it takes up about $1000 to $3000+, varying as per the hour cost of the UX/UI designer.

Backend and Frontend Development

This is the soul and structure of your app, so it can cost you approx $5,000 to $10,000+ if you choose to hire mobile app developers from the leading IT company.

Conclusion

Hopefully, with the blog post, you have understood the essential development steps and estimated cost of each phase. However, if you are seriously following the Amazon app clone, then you can't expect to run it on a particular platform. It is worth it to make it run on multiple platforms like web, iOS and Android. The basic cost of developing an ecommerce app can be in the range of $10,000 to $15,000 with MVP for a singular platform.

But the cost can go to any expensive price, depending upon the needs of your business and app complexity. So if you really have a great app development idea, then it is worth hiring the mobile app development company to help you transform it into a perfect online shopping app and help you determine the exact cost of development.