The 6 Best Mobile eCommerce Apps

Rating and Pricing the Best E-Commerce Apps.

In the future, there may be no desktop e-commerce.

That’s a loud statement to make – but hear us out. In 2014, mobile commerce accounted for 11% of all online retail. B.I. Intelligence predicts that this figure will rise to 45% by 2020.

And with mobile traffic already accounting for 70% of all internet usage, it’s easy to see how m-commerce will eventually become the dominant shopping channel in the future.

So okay, maybe it won’t completely eliminate desktop commerce – at least not for a couple more decades – but one thing’s for sure:

There’s no better time than now to start getting familiar with mobile commerce: especially apps, which account for 90% of all browsing time. To help you do that, we present the 6 best mobile eCommerce apps.

The first is…

1. Best eCommerce App in High-End Fashion: River Island

Key Features: Native user experience; stock level display

As you’d expect from a high-end fashion brand, River Island’s app is delightful. When you first launch it, you get a mini-slideshow highlighting the brand’s current offers. This slideshow is the first of many native user experiences, and it feels smooth and pleasant:

Once you click through to the main app, you see that River Island combines dynamic product listings with static, native, beautifully designed category pages featuring banners and calls to action:

The product list and product description pages are fairly standard in function. At the same time, they stand out from other apps thanks to an intuitive UX design (big button, intuitive slideshow) and the stock level display feature:

The estimated price for the app is $40,000-50,000 in development costs, and $1,000-2,000 in monthly development and content update costs. Pricey – but worth it if you can afford to make an app this wonderful.

2. Best eCommerce App in Cosmetics: Boozyshop

Key features: Push messages, social sharing, reviews

Boozyshop is a make-up retailer that primarily caters to millennials. Knowing their audience cares about simplicity and functionality, the brand used JMango to create an ecommerce app that replicates the elements that made the website so successful:

The storefront has plenty of white space and bright colours: 2 things the millennial target audience loves. The design and navigation menu are both native and fully responsive, allowing users to navigate the app with natural-feeling swipes:

Finally, the app makes it easy for users to share products with their friends. This is an important source of organic traffic – and an important marketing element, since word-of-mouth marketing is highly effective at engaging millennials.

With JMango’s software, this app costs Boozyshop less than $250/month: a small price to pay for one of the best ecommerce applications out this year.

Up next, let’s look at the priciest app on our list…

3. Best eCommerce App in Mid-Level Fashion: H&M

Key features: native user experience, barcode scanner, content management system

H&M has a market value of around $40 billion – so you know they can afford to make an incredible app.

The product pages feature more of the latter, with full-screen H.D. images that turn into a sophisticated product selection menu at the touch of a button:

The app’s UX is impeccable in its minimalism and simplicity. This app manages to pack advanced features, like attaching photos to product pages inside the app, into an interface where everything is always 1 click away.

It’s unrealistic for small and mid-sized businesses to replicate an app like this, but this is the textbook example of what you should aim for.

Don’t let the price tag discourage you, though – because the next entry on our list is amazing and affordable!

Price Estimate: $75,000-95,000 + $1,000-$2,000 monthly upkeep

4. Best eCommerce App in Food & Drink: Cheese Shop and Wine

This app is a little different to the ones listed above. Gouda Cheese Shop is a store where stocks, prices and other product parameters change frequently. As a result, the brand needed a more straightforward ecommerce store app:

The app was built using JMango, which means that stock levels and product-related content are fully synchronized. Gouda Cheese Shop simply updates their Magento store – and the app uploads the changes automatically.

Another cool thing about the app is that it displays reviews alongside intuitive product image slideshows. This is the kind of native user experience that delights customers:

And, this being a JMango ecommerce app, it’s easy to navigate using native swipe motions whether users are on Android or iOS systems:

Price Estimate: $499 up-front fee + $1,990 annual fee

5. Best eCommerce App in Mass Retail: Amazon

Key Features: One-click-checkout, reviews

Amazon is the single biggest ecommerce store in the world, so you know their app’s bound to be great. The front page alone does a perfect job of translating Amazon’s storefront to a native mobile environment – and also gives you a chance to search by voice command and scan product barcodes:

The biggest challenge for a complex platform like Amazon is to keep things simple and intuitive. The app succeeds on both fronts with features like on-page location selection and 1-click purchases. (And they don’t ship cameras to Russia, for some reason. Who’d have thought?)

Estimated Cost: $45,000-$75,000

6. Best eCommerce App in Kids’ Fashion: Gray Label

Key features: graphic icons, look-book, push messages

This app is unique because the products’ customers and end users are different. Specifically, this is a clothing retail app mostly used by moms to whom it caters with this beautiful, look-book style design:

Another reason for the app’s success? It uses the JMango360 ecommerce app builder’s features to ask users for Push notifications, then uses them to re-engage users at will:

And the last element that makes this a stand-out app is the combination of visual elements and native user experiences – like with this graphic left-side-swipe menu:

Estimated Price: $1,990/year + $499 Up-Front Design Investment

And there you have it: that’s 6 of the best ecommerce apps on the market today.

Some of these cost tens of thousands of dollars to make – but the cool thing is that modern DIY no-code apps have allowed some of the companies on our list to get theirs for just hundreds of dollars.

If you’d like to see how easy it is to make your own native app using our platform, why not try it for free right now? Unlike other SaaS services, we don’t place any kind of time limit on you – so if you click here, you’ll be able to use our builder for free, indefinitely, no strings attached.

Launch your ecommerce app with JMango360 and get support

At JMango360 your mobile success is our responsibility. In just 4 weeks time, we’ll design and launch a PWA or native app that reflects your brand and puts your customers first. But adding an app as extra revenue channel is not a ‘launch and they will find me’ project. That’s why we continue where others stop. Our app marketing support team will make your app results their priority. With best practices, templates, full support of experts and monthly app marketing calls you’ll be maximizing your app results in no time!