How to Build Apps Quickly With Our Award-Winning M-Commerce App Builder
The native app is the holy grail of mobile commerce. Compared to mobile websites and other app types, it converts better; it engages more users; it requires less maintenance work.
The problem is that making a native m-commerce app has always been hard and expensive. You have to write unique code for iOS, Android and every other operating system you publish on. This requires tens of thousands of dollars and hundreds of man-hours; something most retailers don’t have.
Fortunately, the innovative JMango360 m-commerce app builder lets you create native apps without coding, in hours, and for a fraction of the cost. In this article, we’ll explain how – but before we do that, let’s talk about why native apps are so hot right now.
Why do I Need a Native M-Commerce App?
In 2016, international e-commerce sales reached $2.29 trillion: more than the combined GDPs of Russia, Belgium and South Africa. Of those sales, 50% come from mobile devices – and that figure is deceptively low.
E-commerce traffic is actually 62% mobile, but many consumers browse from mobile phones and complete purchases on desktops, skewing statistics.
This explains why you need an app. But why a native app?
Simply put, native apps are – as the name implies – the best kind. They work offline, they convert better, users like them using them better than hybrid and web-based apps. If you want to maximize your retention rate and sales, you want a native app.
How to Use an M-Commerce App Builder?
One of the first things people ask us is, “do I need to know coding to make my own app?”.
The answer is “no”. With JMango360, you don’t need to code; you don’t need any specialist equipment; you don’t even need to download anything to local storage unless you want to.
Instead, all you do is use our online SaaS package, which consists of a what-you-see-is-what-you-get builder, and an intuitive administration area.
The design of your app is easy to customize. The back-end comes completely integrated with your store, meaning it automatically synchronizes with your:
-Stock levels
-Payments
-Product variants
-And more
All in real time!
The best part is, it doesn’t matter which e-commerce platform you currently use. JMango360 works with all of the world’s top e-commerce platforms: Magento, Lightspeed and Prestashop. Once you start making your app, it scrapes all the content from your existing store and synchronizes the app to it; all you need to do is keep taking care of business.
The 6 Stages of Making a Native M-Commerce App in JMango
1. Registration
The first thing you do is sign up for free. We only need your information to make sure nobody can access your app, so the there are no long forms; the whole process takes under a minute to complete.
2. Platform Selection
Once you’ve registered, you’ll be asked to choose an e-commerce platform. That way, JMango360 can import all your existing content and data so you don’t have to do it manually. Our software works with the biggest retail platforms in the world – Magento, Prestashop and Lightbox – but you can also make a new app from scratch without using the import function.
3. Importing your e-Store
Enter your website’s information (e.g. its web URL). Then, go to your e-store and install the JMango plugin/module. This will import your existing store into the system and synchronize it with your future app. (For step-by-step instructions and screenshots, bookmark or open our knowledge base).
4. Designing Your App
This is when things start to get fun, because you get to design your app using JMango360’s intuitive drag-and-drop tool. You start by creating the user experience you want with our Feature Library…
Then you choose one of many beautiful themes and customize its elements…
And finally, you add any visual content you need to make your app visually stunning.
If you need any help in making the app look exactly like you want, JMango’s support team and knowledge base are always at your service. Once you’re happy with the way your app looks and feels, JMango360 will help you…
5. Publish Your App
Publishing an app can be difficult. Fortunately, JMango360 takes care of all the messy stuff for you, so all you have to do is configure your settings – which we help you do in this article here.
Be mindful that an app can take some time to get approved by Google and/or Apple; don’t leave publishing for the last minute.
6. Manage the App
Once the app is available in the Google and/or Android app stores, you can manage it – and view all your data – from the JMango360 back office. This is where you:
- Send Push messages (view our guide on optimizing them here)
- Manage mobile users
- Manage subscriptions and payments
And more. The cool part is that when you publish with JMango360, you can control everything from one place.
You don’t have to go to your analytics software to see data, then go to Apple’s site to see your publishing status, then go to your Lightbox store to manage mobile customers. Everything is easy to do in one intuitive environment; something that amazes stores that haven’t seen JMango in action before.
In today’s e-commerce, users almost never start and end the customer journey in the same place.
For example, a consumer may see an Instagram ad; then go to your website, where they read some content; then forget about your brand until they get retargeted with a Facebook ad; then go to your physical store to complete the purchase.
As all of this is happening, you risk losing sight of your leads and past customers. Look at it this way: every time you’re not around to remind consumers of your brand, you’re giving the competition an opportunity.
As you can tell, the whole process is intuitive and straightforward for anyone who’s used a few smartphone apps. It doesn’t matter how tech savvy (or not) your team is; there’s no coding involved, and the JMango360 support team is always on hand to help.
To learn more about getting started with JMango360 for free, click here to book a demo – or click the button below and follow the on-screen instructions.
Follow us:
