How to Develop an M-Commerce App and Maintain its Security?

Developing an app and maintaining its security go hand-in-hand. When it comes to mobile commerce apps, then, one thing is for sure the security of the app is a must. Mcommerce development growth has expanded over the last couple of years, but that doesn’t mean every app will be successful in the market.    

There could be many reasons for mcommerce applications to fail, and one of them is the lack of security. Users will not think twice before completely abandoning the m-commerce app if there are any chances of threat.

Mobile commerce development has revolutionized the way people shop online. The wide range of products, the convenience of shopping, and comparing before buying are some best advantages of using mobile commerce technology.

When going for the user experience and app designing in the mobile commerce app development, make sure you also add the mobile commerce security to the same list. There may be a security hack that will cost you and your users. There are various steps that need to be taken to secure mobile commerce app features that we will discuss later at the end of the blog. But first, let’s check out the latest stats related to the mcommerce market. 

What do Stats Say About Mcommerce Market Growth?

The mcommerce industry has got a lot of plus points as the global mcommerce market is projected to reach a valuation of $3,901 billion by the end of the year 2026, growing at a CAGR of 34.9%. The mcommerce industry is growing because of the increasing demand for smartphones.

Smartphones have become a ubiquitous part of everyone’s life. It has been estimated that almost 55% of traffic in mcommerce comes from smartphones. Also, as per a recent estimate, retail mcommerce sales in the US have already reached $360 billion in 2021, and by 2025, it will amount to approximately $710 billion. 

Almost every other smartphone user has a retail app on their phone. Other than that, the growing urge for online shopping amongst people is another factor for the mcommerce market growth.

Bonus Read- The Complete Guide to Amazing Features of Retail Business Apps

Why you Need to Secure your Mobile Commerce Business

It is impossible to guarantee 100% security coverage. But it does not mean that your business data is exposed to cyber risk. The goal here is to ensure your security measures that prevent attackers from targeting your app in the first place. 

Here are a few possible reasons to secure your mcommerce app:

• All the mcommerce apps operate through a form of P2P sharing. And as a service provider of mobile transactions, you are partially responsible for securing yourself and your customers’ data. 
• The second reason for securing your mcommerce business is that any kind of malware or security breach can lower the trust of your customers towards your brand. 
• Security issues might force the users to uninstall and abandon your application, thus swiftly dropping your engagement rates and thereby completely stopping your revenue stream.

How to Develop Mobile Commerce Apps?

The mobile commerce app development process is not a short and simple one. It requires a lot of resources and advanced planning. However, the steps that are involved in the whole process can be explained briefly.

Step1. Select the mobile app’s platform for the development process. iOS app development, Android app development, Windows app development, etc., are some of the options. Android has a massive user base, whereas iOS users have a higher conversion rate. Depending on the purpose of the business model, choose the platform.

Step 2. Designing the mobile application is the next step. The mobile commerce app design should include visually appealing designs, simple animation as well as a clear font. Make sure the app does not become complicated with too many features.

Step 3. The app must include the necessary features for shopping, browsing, and saving items to buy later. These are the features that make an app likable to users. Also, if a user cannot buy an item without facing any glitches, he will likely not use the app the second time.

Step 4. Publish your app on the app store and go for pre-launch and post-launch marketing. The promotion of the app is a must once it’s launched so that it gets maximum traction. Make sure you use all the marketing tools available online.

Step 5. Maintain the app by fixing the bugs and introducing new updates as needed. Support and maintenance of the app are equally important, so make sure you give it the attention it needs. In the updates, new features can be added to the app that might have been demanded by the users.

So, these were the steps for mobile commerce application development that you can implement to build mcommerce app of your own. Let’s see how mobile commerce app developers safeguard their applications. 

How to Secure Your M-Commerce App?

What is m-commerce without its security? Your customers should have a reason to trust you, and that reason is strong mobile commerce security that can protect customer information. Mobile app security practices should be followed to build an app that is secure at all times. Here are a few key security features of mobile commerce platforms. 

Review the Codes

Writing codes is a monotonous job, and sometimes codes can make mistakes too. The most popular and secure mobile commerce apps have well-reviewed codes that contain no errors. The review of codes should be done by someone else, mostly, an expert is preferred for this job.

When the code is seen by an expert, the mistakes can be identified easily. The vulnerable areas of codes are authentication, authorization, database access, cryptography, etc. With code review, these areas and your mobile commerce applications can be made hackproof.

Regular Authentication

When a user wants to change their personal data, then authentication is needed. The information provided by the users in the first place is quite sensitive, so there will be a need to authenticate any changes in the future.

These authentications are a lifesaver when it comes to money transactions. However, keep in mind not to overdo it since users might get annoyed.

Cryptography

Firm cryptography ensures the security of an app, but a broken one makes the app prone to cyber-attacks. The crypto system must be end-to-end secured to prevent the third party from reading sensitive information or codes.

Successful mobile commerce applications include algorithms that cannot be breached by hackers.

Bonus read- How to Ensure Cybersecurity in the Age of IoT 

Binary Protection

Hackers are always on the hunt for apps that can be hacked so that they can create chaos or steal important data. By securing your app with binary protection, you can stop that from happening.

We now know what goes into the development of mcommerce apps and maintaining the security of the app too. 

Patch Constantly 

Unlike app designing, security is a continuous process that never ends as long as the app runs. Just like regular updates of the app, the security of the app should also be updated on a regular basis. Security needs continuous patching. It is not something that you can design once a mcommerce app has been developed. These patches are mainly defined when it is required. 

For instance, your security measures might not be quite capable enough to keep up the security level of your enterprise. Also, security obstacles might recur in the upcoming future. Therefore, it is crucial that you keep on constantly updating the security measures from time to time.

Prevent Injection Attacks

Trusting all the major inputs shared by the users is one of the biggest mistakes that mobile apps make. They might be wrong, or the same user might access with a duplicate account on the same device. To surpass this breach from the user’s end, you would be required to get the user’s data filtered along with all the inputs they have shared. You can do this by including various levels of cross-authentication and filtration. 

Update your Libraries

In mcommerce app development, it is very much crucial to constantly keep your app updated. With libraries and mobile systems receiving updates, you can prevent attacks just by updating those to the newest version and then releasing them into the app update. Most of the successful attacks in the past were achieved by exploiting unpatched bugs.

Additional Security Features to Consider for your Mcommerce App

Although you have a top-notch security level implemented in your application, unfortunately, it is not enough. In order to develop mcommerce app of your own, you also need to consider a few additional security features. Let’s check them out:

User Experience (UX) 

Don’t make the application too much complicated for the users. Remember, mcommerce app isn’t just an online banking app; it is also about user experience. So there is no requirement for the users to log out every time. Such restrictions can make your app unnecessarily complicated and less user-friendly. Focus on providing mobile-friendly design for your mcommerce app.

Utilize in-built tools or solutions that can improvise the security and experience level. This includes integrating reliable payment methods like Google pay or Apple pay or in app-purchases and sign-in methods from Google or Apple. This method requires almost no action from the users as they can easily auto-fill the forms by utilizing the data already present on the device.

Citing a use case of 6th Street, an ecommerce mobile app was looking for ways to boost its user experience by integrating user-friendly features and enhancing the shopping experience. 6th Street came up to us with alarming challenges like delay in the app start, issues with payment gateways, unfamiliar modules, and an overall poor user experience. 

We fixed issues in the current Algolia SDK and implemented the Algolia analytics. We also restructured their product listing screen design. 

This resulted in a smoother app launch as it was able to render data faster than before. We even integrated secured payment gateways like Apple Pay, Checkout.com, Tabby, Qpay along with the push notification feature for ensuring high engagement. Read this blog to know how much does it cost to build an app like Tabby. 

Legal Compliances 

Being a mcommerce development service provider, you need to abide by the regulatory compliances. These include:

Google or Apple developers agreement: The Apple and Google Play Store requires the users to know what is actually happening with their data and how these data are being processed. Therefore, you are required to share this information in the privacy policy or app description. 

US export law: You can’t leverage some cryptography algorithms in a few global regions or countries that has export restrictions. Also, a few device features may not be available in some selected global regions. To target those regions, you would require using a substitute mobile commerce platform.

GDPR: The European Directive punishes companies and enforces user data security that allows data leakage. The mobile commerce solutions must grant the user the right to investigate all their data. They can also request data removal. 

This is not an easy task, as there are several things like purchase history, invoices, and other details that can only be anonymized. This is why mobile commerce solutions should always implement security by design. 

Internal policies: Various smart internal policies help in preventing social network attacks or phishing on users. As they never ask users about their password or any other code.

After discussing the additional security features for mobile commerce application development, now let us look into the must-have features in order to build mcommerce app. 

Top Features of an M-Commerce App

The mcommerce app features are one of the factors contributing to its success. If you want your mcommerce app to be better than other apps, then you may want to add the following features to your app.

A Product Gallery

The brick-and-mortar stores have the advantage of displaying their products in the most attractive way possible. This is not the case with mobile commerce platforms, which is why the proper display of products is a must. A product gallery will display all the products in a way that appeals to the users. When a product is displayed nicely, then the chances of a user buying it becomes high.

Personalization

Personalization is an expected fact now. Wherever we go, there is personalization, and that makes the work easier. A mobile app should also be personalized as per a customer’s choice, interest, and browsing history on the app. The user should also be able to do searches by filtering the search results. These features enhance the overall user experience and, in turn, results in more sales and engagement.

The best example of a personalization feature is an ecommerce brand called Edamama, which specifically provides a personalized shopping experience for busy mothers. Our talented development team at Appinventiv worked on the advanced features of the Edamama application and designed an innovative and detailed product category tree, along with a predefined flash sale timeline system. 

This helped in the generation of unique SKUs automatically. The app allowed the mothers seamlessly register with the platform and view personalized product recommendations based on their child’s age and gender. 

Order Tracking 

Once the confirmation of the product is received, allow the customers are uses to track the order. Offer them separate emails and messages regarding the same, and remember to update the tracking details with push notifications. With real-time analytics, it becomes possible for both the users and owner to keep track of the orders.

Elimination of Crashes and Bugs

Every single crash or bug in the app can actually turn off the users and force them to move to other applications. This will increase the cart abandonment rate of your mcommerce app and hence, lower your revenue stream. Therefore, for a flawless performance of your mcommerce app, consider tight mcommerce security and user-friendly features to make your app rule in the app stores. As you have utilized a lot of resources, money, and time, you also need to ensure that you are offering a great and robust app to the users.

Analytics

You can only give the customers what they want when you know what they are looking for. All the benefits of building a successful app will go into vain if you cannot gather predictive analytics for mobile apps. One of the advantages of m-commerce apps is that tools can be added to the app to collect various data, which can be turned into information. This information will be used in planning the marketing strategies, promotional tactics, and any other improvements. Numbers are gold for businesses especially coming from the customer base.

Search Bar

Big mcommerce apps have amazing search options with filters that improve the search results. This search result shows what the users of the specific product are looking for. When the user has the search result based on his preferences, the chances of buying become high. This also saves the user time by not going through thousands of products.

Modes of Payment

It is very important to understand that the mode of payment is something that can divert the customers if they don’t get their choice. Mobile commerce apps should also have international payment options that offer users the ease to pay online.

An Offer Section

Most customers prefer online shopping because of the vouchers and ongoing sales. A different section for discounts and offers would do the job of attracting more and more users. The section will let users buy products at a good price, which in turn will increase sales and the number of orders. An ongoing sale is the biggest trend these days for mcommerce.

Customer Service

Users always come up with several questions whenever they face any issue in operating the app. Therefore, it becomes your responsibility to solve them too. Answer all the queries of the users whenever they ask for and don’t force them or ask them to check other sites for solutions. Offer them chatbot-related services, live chat, or a calling facility so that no questions go unanswered.

Mobile Commerce App Development Cost Estimation 

How much does it cost to build an app?’ – this is one of the most asked questions in the app development world. The mobile commerce app development cost is not fixed, as it varies depending on the factors. 

But if you need numbers here, then a basic Android mcommerce app would cost between $8,000 to $50,000. The cost of development for the same app in iOS will be high.

If you are going with ecommerce app development company, then the app will be worth your money as the team will be highly skilled and managed. 

But if you are going for freelance app developers, then make sure you communicate your ideas well and keep track of the progress of the app.

[Also Read: How Much Does it Cost to Build a Marketplace App Like Amazon?]

Future Prospects of Mobile Commerce App Development

Coming to the future scope of m-commerce apps, the growth of m-commerce apps in the future is free of doubt. As the numbers say, mobile commerce application development will grow tremendously in the upcoming years, which means that the revenue stream coming from the same will also increase.

The future of mcommerce is, thus, very bright as the industry is speeding up its business with the implementation of mobile messengers, chatbots, Augmented Reality (AR), single-click payment, marketing automation, and lots more. Currently, a vast majority of retailers are already going for mobile commerce development. 

Thus, it’s also time for you to jump into the mobile commerce bandwagon this year without staying behind. Share your mcommerce app idea with a mcommerce app development company like us.

FAQs

Q. What is the role of mcommerce in business?

A. While mcommerce applications play several characteristics when it comes to showing their prominence in the sector, the two main areas where their role comes to the forefront are the promotion of small and medium-sized businesses and the greater scope of earning revenue by taking the product to the world.

Q. What are the most important mcommerce applications?

A. There are many applications that have emerged in the market today, owing to the growing popularity of the sector. But the few that have maintained their position as some of the most important mCommerce applications operating in the market today are –  Amazon, Ebay, Alibaba, and Etsy, amongst others.

Q. What are some of the top mcommerce trends?

A. Some of the top mcommerce trends that promise to shape the future of mobile commerce include:

• Augmented reality 
• Chatbots 
• Voice search and control 
• Omni channel 
• Speed optimization 
• Mobile in-store check-out 
• Social commerce

Q. What is the difference between mcommerce and ecommerce?

A. Ecommerce is an umbrella term for buying and selling goods online. Mcommerce, also known as mobile commerce is a sub-category of e-commerce that primarily focuses on purchasing only from mobile devices. These include the utilization of tablets, smartphones, or personal digital assistants.
Mcommerce apps are accessible anytime and are only about the users. Also, it continuously interacts with the user every time by notifying them of any updates or offers.

Q. Name a few types of mcommerce apps.

A. The mcommerce apps are divided into 4 main categories. These includes:

• Mobile banking 
• On-demand business 
• Online shopping 
• Online payment

THE AUTHOR

Saurabh Singh

CEO & Director