The market for mobile apps is rapidly evolving. The ecosystem has become highly active and challenging, thanks to highly creative work done by talented developers. There’s an app for almost everything – from taking voice notes to helping you sleep better at night with nature sounds. With this staggering variety of challenges and the availability of various sizes, shapes and types of devices, comes various development challenges.
In this post, we’ve described the challenges that need to be addressed immediately by ecommerce and mCommerce merchants.
2017 promises to be a year of striking growth in mCommerce. It’s the year when the adoption of technology, features and concepts will increase multifold. Greater Smartphone penetration, quicker mobile search and improved context-oriented discovery will contribute to the rise of mobile commerce even further.
[bctt tweet=”While mobile commerce is skyrocketing, it’s not without its challenges. #mcommerce #mobilecommerce #MarketingChallenges” via=”no”]
With rapid growth, comes stiff competition, and it creates tremendous pressure on mCommerce merchants. Consistently providing a great user experience becomes a huge challenge. Just investing in making new business models or launching new products will no longer serve the purpose. Merchants need to invest more in research, development and integration of smart technology that takes mobile ecommerce platform UX to a higher level.
Issues That Slow Down The App Development Process
- The variety of device operating systems: Availability of so many different devices operating systems, middleware, networks along with in-device stuff like memory, screen size, resolutions, and processors make the app development process more and more complex. Imagine how difficult it is to get your hands on every single Smartphone and tablet model available in the market to test your app.
- The presence of different versions of platforms: You can’t expect every user to have the same version of a platform running on their device. While most people use the latest version of a platform, there are still many who don’t. Are you going to miss out on the opportunity to target those users? You can’t take that risk. But developing an app for all platforms (iOS, Android, Windows, Blackberry) is just as complicated as developing one for each platform separately. You’d face compatibility issues, security issues, bugs and what not. Thankfully, there are tools that solve this problem. Tools such as The Xamarin framework, Phonegap, iFactr and Appcelerator help build mobile applications with ease. They offer flexibility, optimum performance and a variety of functionalities to develop apps that are tailored to users’ needs.
- Security of the mobile application: Security is one more issue that slows down the development process of a mobile ecommerce platform.
- Lack of experienced resources: To make an app that runs smoothly on all devices, you need experienced developers. They can be very expensive to come by.
The first challenge is the hardest to address. How can you test your app on all the devices available in the market, with various versions of different operating systems installed in them? Each device has its own form factors, its own sensors such as GPS, cameras etc. One solution to this problem is mobile cloud services that allow you to rent time on different devices through a web interface. It basically creates a mobile ecosystem where data processing and data storage take place outside of the mobile device.
Security issues can be addressed in several ways such as:
- Conducting thorough security testing
- Using encryption
- Planning for data caching vulnerabilities
- Not trusting the built-in platform security completely (there are security flaws in both iOS and Android)
- Not using code written by third-party developers as the code can contain phishing scams
Now, the challenge of hiring experienced, good developers is a pretty tough one too. The hunt for developer talent, especially for ecommerce and mCommerce development is hotter than ever.
[bctt tweet=”The hunt for developer talent is hotter than ever. #appdev #mobiledev #developers” via=”no”]
And if you’re not acquainted with coding, it’s even more difficult to find a talented developer who can help build the mobile application you’re looking for.
So, these issues affect the app development process. But that doesn’t mean it’s all doom and gloom. There are tools and resources to address these issues. These will help make your app development quicker, more productive, and will also generate more ROI for you, regardless of which platform you build your app on.
However, you should keep in mind that plenty of research is required from your end before you commit so that you can be sure that the solutions you’ve chosen are fitting for your app’s present and future needs.
We wish you all the very best in the success of your mobile development.
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