Have you been selling successfully on Amazon for a while now? It’s time to think about building your own ecommerce app.
Selling on Amazon is a great way to hit the ground running and start making early profits. With over 310 million active users worldwide, Amazon is a massive marketplace. In fact, 50% of all buying journeys begin on Amazon, which means significant market reach within minimal upfront cost.
However, selling on Amazon comes with ample strings attached. If you are serious about building an ecommerce business and establishing a memorable brand, you need to consider building your own ecommerce app – one that you own whole and sole.
For ambitious entrepreneurs serious about business growth, diversifying sales channels is crucial to maximizing market reach and business autonomy. While selling on Amazon has its upsides, complementing your Amazon store with a dedicated ecommerce app offers unparalleled opportunities for brand building, customer engagement, and long-term sustainability.
An ecommerce app serves as a direct extension of your brand, enabling tailored customer experiences, personalized marketing initiatives, and data-driven insights. You get to foster a loyal customer base through your own ecommerce app, and eliminate dependency on external marketplaces. You are immune to risks associated with policy changes or account suspension, and unlock new avenues for revenue generation and brand expansion.
In essence, leveraging both Amazon’s reach and the personalized touch of your own ecommerce app empowers businesses to forge stronger connections with customers, drive sustainable growth and scalability, and future-proof your online presence.
Most importantly, you get to steer clear of…
Some Disadvantages of Selling on Amazon
A variety pack of fees, fierce competition, no control over branding, and lack of personal customer relationships are just a few of the many limitations of selling on Amazon. Therefore, it’s essential to consider building your own ecommerce platform in tandem with selling on Amazon to mitigate these challenges effectively. Let’s take a detailed look at the limitations of selling on Amazon.
- Hefty Fees: While Amazon offers access to a broad audience, sellers must cough up a multitude of fees such as referral fees, fulfilment fees, storage fees, and more. The challenge lies in balancing the potential for increased sales against the impact of these fees on profit margins.
- Little to No Branding: Sellers often find themselves constrained by Amazon’s uniform interface, limiting the scope for brand differentiation and customer engagement. This can stifle your brand’s ability to stand out in a crowded marketplace, hindering your efforts to build brand recognition and loyalty.
- Highly Competitive Landscape: The sheer volume of sellers on Amazon steeply intensifies competition. Despite what looks like a huge marketplace with millions of customers at the ready, you end up having to contend with over 2 million Amazon sellers. Outcompeting becomes even harder due to spiralling price wars and lack of branding.
- Regulatory Policies: Amazon’s dynamic regulatory environment requires sellers to remain vigilant and adaptable. Changes in policies, algorithms, or marketplace dynamics can impact business operations unpredictably, leaving sellers hassled and off-kilter.
- Limited Access to Customer Insights: Amazon’s centralized control over customer data restricts sellers’ ability to cultivate direct relationships with their clientele. This impedes efforts to gather actionable insights and tailor products or marketing strategies to meet consumer preferences effectively.
- Risk of Account Suspension: Non-compliance with Amazon’s policies or performance metrics can result in account suspension or termination, posing a significant risk to business continuity.
- Counterfeit and Imitation Concerns: The open marketplace model of Amazon renders sellers vulnerable to counterfeit and imitation products, posing reputational and financial risks.
- No Direct Communication: Sellers have no direct access to customer interactions and feedback, relying solely on Amazon’s platform for communication. This hampers meaningful customer relationships and actionable feedback for business improvement.
Given the delightful bouquet of challenges above, it’s time to think about a suitable solution like custom ecommerce app development. We’re obviously not suggesting turning your back on Amazon. The advantages of selling on Amazon are significant and many. However, it’s time to find something that makes up for the limitations of it.
Advantages Of Having Your Own Ecommerce App
The strategy here is to augment your Amazon store with your own ecommerce app. That way, you could balance out the pros and cons, and get the best of both worlds, literally. You continue to leverage the vast market reach of Amazon and sell to a ready crowd of buyers. At the same time, you leverage your own ecommerce app to execute powerful branding, cultivate genuine connections with your customers, personalize your services, and establish a resilient business.
Having your own ecommerce app can be a game-changer in establishing your ecommerce empire. It gives you unparalleled control over the entire customer journey. With features like push notifications, personalized recommendations, and seamless checkout experiences, your app becomes a powerful tool for engaging customers and driving conversions.
Also, owning your app means owning your customer data, giving you invaluable insights into their preferences and behavior to refine your marketing strategies and product offerings further. Ultimately, by leveraging the flexibility and intimacy of your own app alongside platforms like Amazon, you can build a stronger ecommerce presence that transcends market fluctuations and fosters long-term success.
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Steps To Build Your Own Ecommerce App Easily
Building your own ecommerce is no longer an expensive, time-consuming, enterprise-level undertaking. You don’t need to hire a big fat development team, or set aside six months for app development.
There are multiple options like Shopify apps, cross-platform apps, or web apps, that have quick turnaround time and are well within a modest budget. As long as you hire the right app development company, you can launch your app within a few weeks’ time.
Types of E-commerce Apps You Can Build
When we say app development, the perception is of a tedious and expensive process. However, the reality today is starkly opposite. As long as you have the right app development company by your side, there are numerous bespoke as well as turnkey solutions that can have your app up and running in no time.
Shopify Apps
With Shopify, setting up a fully functional e-commerce store has never been easier. Their platform provides an array of customizable templates and features, allowing you to create your app quickly and efficiently without the need for extensive development work.
Web Apps
Web apps offer a versatile and cost-effective solution for reaching a broad audience. By running directly in a web browser, they eliminate the need for separate development efforts across different platforms. Plus, they provide seamless accessibility across various devices, making them an excellent choice for businesses looking to maximize their online presence.
Cross-Platform Apps
For those aiming to reach both Android and iOS users without doubling development efforts, cross-platform app development frameworks like React Native and Flutter are the go-to options. These frameworks allow you to build apps that run seamlessly across different platforms with a single codebase, reducing development time and costs while ensuring a consistent user experience.
The key is to choose the solution that aligns best with your business goals, budget, and target audience. With the right approach, you can have your app up and running in a few weeks, helping you to expand your reach and grow your business effectively in the competitive e-commerce market.
Step 1: Define your goals
Start by clarifying the objectives of your ecommerce app. Determine what you aim to achieve, whether it’s increasing sales, enhancing customer engagement, or expanding your brand reach. Or all of the above.
Step 2: Understand your target audience
Conduct market research to identify your target demographic, their preferences, and pain points. Tailor your app’s features and user experience to meet the needs of your audience effectively.
Step 3: List requirements
Create a detailed list of features and functionalities that your ecommerce app needs to have. Prioritize these requirements based on their importance to your business and target audience.
Step 4: Set a budget and timeline
Establish a realistic budget and timeline for your app development project. Consider factors such as development costs, maintenance expenses, and potential scalability requirements.
Step 5: Choose the Right App Development Company
Look for app development companies with experience in building ecommerce apps and a proven track record of delivering successful projects. Consider factors such as expertise, portfolio, client testimonials, and pricing models.
Step 6: Collaborate and iterate
Work closely with the app development company throughout the development process. Provide feedback, review progress regularly, and collaborate on refining the app to meet your expectations.
Step 7: Test and launch
Conduct rigorous testing to ensure the app functions as intended and delivers a seamless user experience. Once satisfied, launch the app on app stores and promote it to your target audience.
Step 8: Monitor and optimize
Monitor app performance post-launch and gather user feedback to identify areas for improvement. Continuously optimize the app based on user data and market trends to enhance its effectiveness and drive business growth.
Conclusion
In conclusion, while selling on Amazon offers significant advantages in terms of market reach and convenience, it’s important to acknowledge the limitations and risks associated with relying solely on the platform. By diversifying your sales channels and complementing your Amazon store with your own ecommerce app, you can mitigate these challenges effectively while unlocking new opportunities for brand building, customer engagement, and long-term sustainability.
By collaborating with the right app development company, you can streamline the development process and launch your app with confidence. So why limit yourself to just one platform when you can have the best of both worlds? Take the next step towards building your ecommerce empire today.
