In today’s digital age, having an online presence is crucial for any business looking to succeed. This is especially true for the fashion industry, where the rise of ecommerce has created new opportunities for growth and expansion. With the increasing popularity of smartphones and mobile devices, developing a fashion ecommerce app has become necessary for fashion retailers looking to reach their target audience and provide a seamless shopping experience.
In this guide, we’ll explore the key considerations and steps in developing a successful fashion ecommerce app, including design, functionality, user experience, and more. So, whether you’re an established fashion retailer looking to expand your online presence or an entrepreneur looking to break into the industry, read on to learn how to create a top-notch fashion ecommerce app that will engage and delight your customers.
What Is Fashion Mobile App?
A fashion mobile app is a software application designed to provide fashion-related services, such as outfit suggestions, style inspiration, shopping assistance, and social networking for fashion enthusiasts. These apps are typically available for download on smartphones and tablets. They use various features like machine learning algorithms, image recognition, and augmented reality to provide personalized fashion recommendations and experiences. Users can browse a wide range of fashion products, create wish lists, receive notifications about sales and discounts, and connect with other fashion-minded individuals through the app’s social features.
Why Do You Need Mobile App For Fashion Business?
Fashion mobile apps have become increasingly popular in recent years as more and more people turn to ecommerce for their shopping needs. These apps offer a convenient way to keep up with the latest trends in the fashion industry, allowing users to browse and purchase clothing and accessories from their homes.
With so many different apps available on the market, users can easily find an app that suits their preferences; whether it be a particular brand they’re loyal to or a more general ecommerce platform like Amazon, Myntra, H&M, ZARA, etc. Once downloaded and installed, users can register on the app, enter their address, and begin browsing through the various categories available for purchase.
One of the key advantages of using a fashion mobile app is the ability to compare products from multiple brands on a single platform, enabling users to make more informed purchasing decisions. Users can add items to their cart and checkout directly from the app. Integrated payment options allow seamless online payments via debit or credit cards, online banking, or e-wallets.
Overall, fashion ecommerce mobile apps offer an accessible and engaging shopping experience with a wide range of categories and products for users to explore.
How Do Fashion Mobile Apps Work?
Fashion mobile apps serve as a platform that connects wholesalers, manufacturers, dealers, brands, and customers. These apps operate through various eCommerce mediums, including Business to Customers (B2C), where businesses or brands create their apps to showcase their products.
Here Are Some of The Key Points on How Fashion Mobile Apps Work:
- Direct Selling: Fashion mobile apps enable brands to sell their products directly to customers without intermediaries. The app is a platform for brands to showcase their products, allowing customers to browse them, select the desired item, and purchase them.
- Multi-Vendor Platforms: Some fashion mobile apps work as multi-vendor platforms, integrating multiple brands under their entity. Brands can list their products on these platforms, allowing them to sell them on a bigger platform.
- Product Categories: Fashion mobile apps categorize products under various categories, such as women’s wear, men’s wear, kids’ wear, accessories, shoes, etc. This helps customers to search for the products they are looking for easily.
- Secure Payment Gateway: These apps provide secure gateways that enable customers to make purchases using different payment options, including credit/debit cards, mobile wallets, net banking, etc.
- Personalization: Some fashion mobile apps use AI algorithms that analyze customer preferences, search history, and purchase history to offer personalized recommendations. This enhances the shopping experience of customers and increases customer loyalty.
- Reviews and Ratings: Customers can provide feedback on purchased products, allowing other customers to read reviews before making a purchase decision. This helps brands to improve their products and build customer trust.
Fashion mobile apps have revolutionized how we shop for clothes and accessories. They provide a convenient platform for brands to showcase their products and for customers to browse and purchase products from the comfort of their homes.
Benefits of Fashion Mobile App Stores
Ifashion mobile app stores provide numerous benefits to customers and businesses, including convenience, personalized experiences, exclusive discounts, improved data analytics, and increased reach and sales.
Benefits of Fashion Mobile App Stores to Customers
- Convenience: Fashion mobile app stores allow customers to shop from their homes or anywhere. They can easily download the app, create an account, and shop without visiting physical stores.
- Personalized Experience: Shopping apps provide users with a personalized shopping experience through AI-based recommendations, personalized offers, and customized notifications.
- Easy Navigation: Fashion mobile app stores allow customers to navigate different product categories and find what they want through filters and search options.
- Exclusive Discounts: Shopping apps offer exclusive discounts and deals to customers not available in physical stores, saving them money and increasing their loyalty to the brand.
- Faster Checkout: With saved payment and shipping details, customers can check out their shopping cart in just a few clicks, saving time and making the shopping experience seamless.
- 24/7 Accessibility: Shopping apps are accessible 24/7, allowing customers to shop whenever they want without worrying about store hours or holidays.
Benefits of Fashion Mobile App Stores to Businesses
- Increased Reach: Fashion mobile app stores give businesses access to a more extensive customer base as they can reach customers far from physical stores or prefer online shopping.
- Better Customer Engagement: Shopping apps provide businesses with a platform to engage customers through personalized notifications, offers, and promotions, increasing customer loyalty and retention.
- Improved Data Analytics: Shopping apps provide businesses with valuable data analytics that can be used to understand customer behavior and preferences and to make data-driven business decisions.
- Increased Sales: With personalized recommendations, exclusive discounts, and easy checkout, shopping apps can increase business sales.
- Cost-Effective: Developing and maintaining a shopping app can be cost-effective for businesses in the long run as it reduces the cost of running physical stores and can lead to increased revenue.
- Better Brand Visibility: A shopping app can increase brand visibility and awareness by providing businesses with a platform to showcase their products and engage with customers directly.
Why Do Fashion Brands Prefer Their Own Fashion E-Commerce Mobile Apps?
Fashion brands are increasingly turning to their own eCommerce mobile apps to provide a personalized shopping experience for their customers. Here are some reasons why a separate app for your brand might be beneficial:
1. No Competition
With your brand’s products exclusively displayed on the app, customers are more likely to be focused on other options. This can increase sales and cultivate loyalty among direct customers.
2. Data Analytics
Your brand’s app can help you better understand customer preferences and behaviors through data analytics. This information lets you make personalized recommendations that enhance the shopping experience and boost customer satisfaction.
3. Audience Feedback
By offering a support team and a platform for customer feedback, your brand can continually improve its offerings and build stronger relationships with its audience.
4. Target Customers
With access to data on customer demographics, your brand can tailor its marketing efforts to reach the most valuable customers. This can help you stand out from the competition and increase sales.
5. Revenue Growth
By providing a trustworthy and personalized shopping experience, your brand can build a loyal customer base that returns for future purchases. This can lead to long-term revenue growth and increased profitability.
6. Special Offers and Discounts
By offering exclusive discounts and promotions to loyal customers, your brand can incentivize repeat business and generate positive word of mouth.
7. Marketing
With access to detailed customer data, your brand can create targeted marketing campaigns that speak directly to your audience’s interests and preferences. This can increase engagement and drive sales.
Some famous examples of fashion brands with eCommerce apps include Nike, Adidas, and Zara. Investing in a distinct mobile app for your brand can provide a personalized shopping experience that enhances customer loyalty and drives revenue growth.
Types of Fashion eCommerce Mobile App Stores
1. Single Vendor Fashion Mobile App
These virtual stores allow 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 solely dedicated to their brand and sell products only under their brand name.
2. Multi-vendor Fashion Mobile App
This one is like Amazon, Myntra, and other big apps that house most brands and let anyone start their business by selling products under a brand name. It is a platform that brings together several brands under one single roof. Users can 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) Fashion Mobile App
This type of app caters to businesses selling fashion products’ needs. B2B fashion apps offer a platform for wholesale transactions between fashion manufacturers and retailers, helping businesses to procure inventory and manage their supply chain efficiently.
4. Customer-to-Customer (C2C) Fashion Mobile App
C2C fashion apps enable individuals to buy and sell fashion products among themselves. In this type of app, users can create profiles, list their products, and directly communicate with potential buyers.
5. Rental Fashion Mobile App
Rental fashion apps allow users to rent clothing and accessories for a specific duration rather than buying them outright. This type of app is gaining popularity among people who want to wear designer clothes for special occasions without spending a lot of money.
6. Personal Stylist Fashion Mobile App
Personal stylist fashion apps offer personalized styling services to customers. Users can create a profile, specify their preferences, and receive customized recommendations from professional stylists.
7. Social Media Fashion Mobile App
Social media fashion apps enable users to browse and shop for fashion products while interacting with friends and followers. These apps incorporate social features such as user profiles, follower counts, and social sharing, creating a more engaging shopping experience.
8. Flash Sale Fashion Mobile App
Flash sale fashion apps offer time-limited discounts on popular fashion products. These apps create a sense of urgency among customers, driving sales and increasing customer engagement.
9. Fashion Super App
A super app for a fashion Business refers to a platform that offers a wide range of services and features related to fashion, such as shopping, styling advice, virtual try-ons, trend forecasts, and social networking. It aims to provide users with a comprehensive and seamless experience, allowing them to fulfill all their fashion-related needs in one place.
Reasons To Invest In A Fashion Mobile App
The fashion industry has always been ahead of what we think. Even during the pandemic, when the countries were imposing lockdowns, people were spending hours gazing at the products offered on the fashion and shopping apps. Society has built pressure on everyone to stay on trend. This has given 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 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
Fashion and Beauty Shopping Apps with The Most Downloads in The United States in 2022
Popular Fashion Mobile Apps & Online Stores Across the Globe
Some of The Popular Fashion Mobile Apps and Online Stores Are:
What Makes a Fashion Mobile App Successful?
If you think making a fashion app and getting it sailing is a cakewalk, you are not thinking in the right direction. There is a team of technicians, fashion experts, and 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 easy-to-use and easy-to-understand app. 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.
Steps To Develop Fashion Mobile App Development
By following these steps, you can develop a successful fashion mobile app that meets the needs of your target audience.
1. Define Your App’s Goals and Target Audience
Determine the purpose of your app and who your target audience is. What features will be included in the app, and what problems will it solve for your users?
2. Choose a Development Platform
Decide which platform to develop for, such as iOS or Android. Alternatively, you could opt for cross-platform development using tools like React Native or Flutter.
3. Hire a Development Team
You’ll need a team of skilled developers, designers, and testers to bring your app to life. Hire experienced professionals familiar with the platform and technologies you choose.
4. Create a Wireframe
A wireframe visually represents your app’s structure and functionality. It will help you plan your app’s user interface and user experience.
5. Develop the App
Once you have a wireframe, your development team can start building the app. Regularly meet with your team to discuss progress, provide feedback, and ensure the app meets your goals.
6. Test and Debug the App
Testing is critical to ensure your app functions properly and is user-friendly. Test the app thoroughly on various devices, and address any bugs or issues.
7. Launch and Promote the App
Once your app is ready, it’s time to launch it in the app store. Promote it through various channels, such as social media, email marketing, and paid advertising.
8. Maintain and Update the App
Your work must still be done after launching the app. Continue maintaining and updating the app to ensure it remains functional and relevant to your users.
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 daily. 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 ecommerce 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.
Several aspects 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 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 several such apps have already hit the bull’s eye. However, the urge to develop 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 contact an app development company that will introduce you to some of the most talented personnel to work on your project to give you the desired results.
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