How To Develop Online Bookstore Mobile App? Complete Guide

The dynamics of doing business have significantly changed over the last few years. While earlier people preferred shopping physically over online, now they are highly dependent on making purchases online to ensure their security and well-being. This has given the businesses a chance to positively sustain even amid pandemics by getting the business online and targeting mobile-savvy consumers. And this is the reason various marketplaces of several industries have made their digital presence felt in the past two years. In this article, we will be covering many aspects of creating an online bookstore, Essential features, benefits, market size, and a lot more. Stay tuned if you are someone looking to carve your niche in this segment.

Benefits Of An Book Delivery App

The online bookstore delivery apps allow the book store owners and authors to sell or rent their books to people interested in reading them in return for money. Today, people are so dependent on mobile apps that they don’t like to step out of their houses and book everything online. Same way, they head to an online bookstore marketplace every time they want to purchase or rent a book. With these online marketplaces for books, the app users just need to register themselves on these apps and search for the genre of books they’re interested in reading.

Next, they need to apply filters, enter the book author name, and based on the keystrokes, several suggestions open in front of them. Then from those options, they can choose and add the book to the cart to buy or rent and make the payment. Once the payment has been made, the users simply need to relax as the delivery process is processed at the end of the online bookstore owner. The users can track their orders using the shipment details shared by the app.

Do you know even Amazon was once an online bookstore? Amazon started off as a bookstore, and over time it became the most prominent ecommerce store. As a bookseller, one has many options and wide-ranging demography to cater to. You can choose to sell books to appeal to kids, like comics or educational books for the students, and fiction & non-fiction books for other interested readers.

When the online website is backed with a mobile app, it further empowers the business. Hence even though the websites work great to create awareness regarding the brand, it is the app that is crucial to keep your business trending in the market. The apps work great to make your bookstore easily accessible for customers and increase repeat sales and conversions. It enhances the business Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) and the branding initiatives.

Online Bookstore App Market Size & Statistics

In the last year, the market share of online bookstores has tremendously grown, and these stores have generated huge revenue during this time owing to the pandemic outbreak. During this time, as people were locked indoors, many of them developed the habit of reading, and hence it spiked the revenues of online bookstores with the only option to buy books was online.

As per a survey, the worldwide online book service market size was estimated at 17.7 billion USD in 2019, and we expect these numbers to grow at a CAGR of 5.8% from 2020 to 2027. By the end of 2027, it is expected that the global online bookstore market will earn a revenue of 27.8 billion USD. Research states that almost 12000 people make online book purchases in a day. And to make the most of these numbers, you can also plan for an online book store app that not just gives great exposure to your business but also easily connect your brand with potential customers.

What Is The Target Audience For A Online Book Store

Plan your strategy based on the type of reading material that your target audience is seeking on the online bookstore platforms. First, do a relevant market survey.

Here is the type of target audience you should look for:

• School Kids/Students
• Bachelor and Spinsters
• Businesspersons and executives
• Sportsmen
• Tourists
• Literary Scholars
• Pregnant Moms
• Relationships
• Retirees
• Yuppies
• Active/Fit
• Movers
• Baby Boomers

What Are The Most Popular Online Selling Books Categories

Top Online Bookstore Apps Across The World

Here is the list of top online bookstores across the world.

1. Amazon Book Store

Amazon, which is the biggest online store today, started by selling books online, and today it has reached unprecedented levels of success, becoming the biggest ecommerce store across the world. The Amazon bookstore offers a million book titles across categories like Children’s Books, Fictional Books, Non-Fiction, Free eBooks, Business & Economics, and Audiobooks.

2. Powell’s Book Store

This bookseller is based in Portland, Oregon, and has a physical presence in various locations across the city and also a website catering to people who do not live in Portland. Their website is well-organized and easy to use, and the users find both used and new books there and several pieces of CDs, DVDs, and software. To allow users to choose wisely, they offer “Staff Picks,” where they can find several recommendations that help decide which books to read next. There are also some “picks of the month” and “bucket list books.” This website also allows for selling your own books online and in-store.

3. Books-A-Million Book Store

Also known as BAM, Books-A-Million’s journey went back a long way in 1917 in Alabama. Today, it is the second-largest book retailer in the United States with several physical stores and has become an online bookseller. With BAM, its users get a diverse inventory, including new, used, and bargain books, coming with attractive price tags. Here they also get games, magazines, toys listed on the website, and e-books. However, BAM doesn’t offer its users to trade titles with other readers, so there is no selling of your own books on BAM.

4. Alibris Book Store

This online bookstore only operates via third-party booksellers, which means when you are buying a book from Alibris, you are buying it from an independent bookstore. Hence this platform is ideal for the ones looking for rare, used, or collectible titles, like first editions, signed copies, and antiquarian titles. Also, this website constantly offers several discounts on books in the form of student discounts and coupons.

5. Peachpit Book Store

This Pearson brand specializes in selling books, e-books, and other educational materials to the ones in the creative profession. Here, the users can find wide-ranging photography-related titles, everything that you require to get started with Adobe Photoshop, academic resources for web development and design, and video-making guides. Also, other than printed books, it also offers online courses and digital materials for on-the-go learners.

Types Of Bookstore Dedicated To Brand Or Publishing House Or Multivendor Bookstore

There are three different types of online bookstores, they are:

1. Publishing House

These are the most commonly found online bookshops. In this type of bookstore app, the authors pay a specific amount to the app or website owner to display their books on the platform. Then on each sale, the author pays a certain amount as a commission. These platforms have offered an array of books of various authors, have a large number of visitors, and have a higher conversion rate. These platforms play an important role in bringing readers and authors together under one platform.

2. Individual Bookstores

These apps are dedicated & exclusive online bookstores mainly owned by the authors. These are the authors who wrote a variety of books, and they choose to sell their books on their own online bookstore. Thus, their loyal readers who are waiting for their new books can directly visit the app or their website and buy the books. These portals do not sell books from other authors or have any information about them.

Basic Feature Of Online Bookstore Mobile App

Advance Features Of Online Bookstore Mobile App

1. Social Signup/Sign-in

This functionality allows the app users to signup or sign in to the app using their social networking credentials such as Twitter, Facebook, or others. This way, the users are not required to fill in long details/personal information, as, upon social signup, the app takes the required information from their social networking accounts itself.

2. Push Notification

These are the alerts and notifications sent by the app to the user’s device to inform about order confirmation, shipping details, the arrival of their order, and other information that needs to be sent to the app user.

3. Voice Assistant

When this functionality is integrated into the app, the user can directly give voice commands instead of tapping on the device again and again, and the appropriate suggestions will display on their screens.

4. Smart Filters

These smart filters offer filters so that users can reach their desired product/book item much more easily.

5. Book Preview

The book preview feature allows the app users to get a sneak-peek into a book, like reading the first chapter of the book within the app itself, without purchasing the book. Accordingly, if the user likes to continue reading, s/he can choose to make that purchase.

6. User Behavior Tracking

When integrated into the app, this functionality helps track users’ behavior with the app and offer them suggestions accordingly.

7. Chatbot Integration

When the bookstore app has chatbot integration functionality, it allows the users to have instant answers to their queries without the need for any real human interaction.

8. CMS Integration

The Content Management System (CMS) allows to easily and efficiently manage the app’s content, taking required actions to enhance the content as per the users’ likes and preferences.

9. CRM Integration

This is a Customer Relationship Management System, which is great as loyal customers are the backbone of any business and a CRM system allows to maintain a good relationship with the customers.

10. Analytic Integration

When a real-time analytics system is integrated into the app, it allows managing the app’s analytics in real-time, keeping an eye on the activity/interaction of app users with the app, and accordingly taking actions to enhance their experience with the app.

11. Review & Feedback

Customer feedback and reviews are crucial for any business as they allow one to understand the customer’s perspective and their requirements with the app and their services. This way, the business can take the required measures to offer better services and understand what customers really love.

12. Role-based Dashboards

These role-based dashboards are to monitor the activities of different panels that play a role in managing the app, such as user-panel, admin panel, customer-panel, etc.

13. Shipment Tracking

This functionality allows the app users to track the shipment of their placed order, like when it is dispatched, where it has reached, and when it will be out for delivery.

Required Tech-Stack For Bookstore App Development

Required Team Structure For Bookstore Development

The team structure for bookstore app development generally consist of:

• Project Manager
• Team of iOS and/or Android development
• Back-end developers
• UX/UI designers
• Quality Analysts

How Much Does It Cost To Develop An Online Bookstore?

In the earlier part of this article, we covered the features, panels, team structure, and tech-stack required for the app, and now we have come to the most important part, which is determining the cost required to invest in a bookstore app development. However, it is difficult to give a specific amount for app development as there are a number of factors affecting the bookstore app development. Here we have mentioned the elements that play the main role in finalizing online bookstore app development costs. Here are the main factors:

• App features and functionalities: They are crucial in determining the development cost. The common features cost less, whereas the cost increases when the complex features are integrated.
• The number of hours: App features also affect the time taken in app development and time again impacts the app development cost as the more time goes into app making process, the cost increases along with it.
• App Complexity: The app complexity level also affects its development cost.
• Development Team: The experience and experience of the app development team affect the cost. When the app development job is given to a freelancer, it may cost less. However, the cost increases when a mobile app development company handles the app development process, as then you get a team of experienced and expert app developers handling your app development process.
• App Design and UX/UI: The more complex is the app design, the more it will cost.

Now to give a rough estimate, it can be said that the app with essential features and created for a single platform will cost around $25000–$30000, whereas a bookstore app with advanced features and created for both Android and iOS platforms will cost about $50000–$60000.