10 Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Mobile App Development Company for Your mCommerce
You want to be sure that you’ve chosen the right software company for your mobile app project?
Finding the best technological partner starts with answering a few elementary questions.
If you need help looking for mobile app developers who are familiar with solutions for the mCommerce industry, read our tips. Find out what information will help you choose the best team.
Key takeaways
- In order to find the best mobile app development company for your needs, outline your project requirements, target audience, budget, and desired features.
- M-commerce app development requires specific skills, including expertise in mobile platforms (iOS and Android), e-commerce integrations, payment gateways, security protocols, and UI/UX design.
- Carefully review the developer’s portfolio to assess their previous work, focusing on m-commerce projects if possible.
- Check references and online reviews.
- Evaluate the developer’s technical skills, including their proficiency in relevant programming languages, frameworks, and mobile development tools.
- A strong understanding of UI/UX principles is crucial for creating a user-friendly and engaging m-commerce app.
- Effective communication is essential for a smooth collaboration throughout the development process.
- Inquire about the company’s app development process, including their approach to project management and quality assurance testing.
Step one – know your needs
Before you start looking for an app development company, take some time to prepare. You must know your needs and expectations—the more detailed they are, the better. This will help you set standards that your future partner must meet.
Choosing the right app development company will help you avoid delays, budget overruns, serious bugs, and issues related to customer experience.
What matters should you consider?
App goals
Identify what business goals you want to achieve with an app. Most likely, your main goal is to increase sales, but the app can also help you in different ways. For example, to reach a new target group or improve brand loyalty.
When discussing the project with software companies, ask them for their recommendations to help you achieve your goals. If they have valuable ideas, it may be a good sign that they’re well-oriented in the industry and able to adjust various solutions to your needs.
Project scope
Apart from standard eCommerce functionalities, you may also need additional features that have not been implemented on your website. These features should serve as a unique value proposition for smartphones and make you stand out.
If you already know precisely what you want, it will be easier to estimate the cost and time of app development. If you don’t have it figured out yet, ask the app development agency how they can help you.
Available budget
Estimate how much of your company’s budget you can allocate for app development. Additionally, evaluate how flexible you can be. Select priorities and choose optional elements that could possibly be excluded from the project if its estimated cost is too high.
Unnegotiable deadlines
Many companies want to release their apps by a specified date. Determine when you need to launch the app to achieve your business goals. This will help the app development team plan the project’s execution. They will analyze whether it’s feasible to implement everything you want for the MVP within the given timeframe.
When you know the elementary requirements, evaluating mobile app development companies is more straightforward, especially when you have questions at hand that will help you determine who should create your project.
Questions for an app development company
1. What is your experience in mobile app development?
You probably want to work with people who have been developing mobile apps for years. You need trusted experts who will share their advice with you and help you make decisions regarding technology.
That’s why a portfolio is one of the first sections you must check on a software development company’s website. Make sure they have created apps for the eCommerce industry before. Ideally, you should also read testimonials from clients who have worked with them before.
How else can you check the company’s experience? Look at its blog. Search for topics related to trends in eCommerce, technological solutions for online stores, etc. This will show you whether the company understands the challenges of your industry and what solutions it proposes. You can also investigate the topic deeper during calls with the company’s representatives.
Examples:
2. What does your mobile app development process look like?
A transparent, structured process is key. You must know the app development stages and how your team will be involved in it.
This will allow you to learn how app developers plan to execute the project and assess whether it meets your needs.
What should you focus on?
- Stages in the app development process: Learn how much attention the company pays to understanding the project and your goals. Get to know how they plan to involve you in decision-making and what actions they want to take at each stage.
- Agile methodology: Determine if the company applies an iterative, agile approach to project management. It enables flexibility, gives you more control, and allows you to make changes at different stages.
- Team composition: Check who will be involved in creating your mobile app. Usually, in addition to software developers, the team comprises a UX designer, a QA tester, and a project manager responsible for organizational matters. Additionally, a UX researcher or a technical project coordinator may be needed.
Find more information:
- Roles in Agile Teams
- Free ebook about the mobile app development process at Holdapp
3. What technologies do you use to build apps?
It’s best to build apps with reliable technologies that ensure stability and allow you to provide the best UX.
Usually, to develop mobile apps, we use native programming languages, such as Swift for iOS and Kotlin for Android, or cross-platform solutions like Flutter.
Native apps are the fastest, and their UI design is tailored to a platform. However, you need to build two apps, separately for iOS and Android.
Flutter is also worth consideration because it lets you build apps for two platforms with one codebase, so you need only one software developer for the project.
Even if you don’t know what solution you need yet, it’s best to find a company that specializes in both technologies. They can analyze your needs, consider your limitations, and recommend solutions tailored to your project.
Learn more about Flutter:
4. How much time will you build the app?
The standard answer says: “It depends.”
Many factors impact the app development time. You’ll likely get a detailed answer only after a thorough project scope analysis.
Nevertheless, at the early stage, you can ask how the technology choice will impact the execution time and whether app developers see any areas that would enable optimization and time savings.
It will help you determine whether the app development company is eager to find solutions that will allow you to finish the project within your preferred timeframe.
5. How much will the project execution cost?
Although the budget is probably essential for your company, don’t expect to get the answer right at the first meeting. Just like in the case of execution time, estimating the project cost is a complex issue.
That’s why it’s useful to know what factors are considered for cost estimation. Make sure you understand the criteria and pricing strategy.
It will give you a better idea of what you can afford and what is probably out of your reach because of your limited budget. You might have to reconsider what elements could be altered to lower the project cost.
6. What do you do to ensure customer data security?
Data security is critical in eCommerce to build customer trust and comply with regulations. Many entities are involved to ensure the highest security, including external providers (such as payment systems) or backend development companies.
However, it’s best to ask mobile app developers how they ensure compliance with GDPR (in the EU). If you have to follow any additional regulations specific to your region, you should also ask if the company has been dealing with them before and what solutions they implemented.
7. What is your experience with mCommerce software integrations such as Shopify or Magento?
Depending on your needs, ask app developers if they can integrate your mobile app with Shopify or Magento or help you migrate from your current system to one of these platforms.
Make sure that app developers can connect Shopify with tools from other providers you use, such as delivery companies, invoicing services, payment providers, CRMs, or ERP systems.
It’s crucial to hire mobile app developers who can also implement additional apps that ensure functionalities important for your eCommerce business, such as chat, product reviews, email marketing, etc.
8. How do you ensure effective communication throughout the project?
Anytime you have a question about the project, you should be able to contact a project manager or technical coordinator quickly. That’s why it’s best to ask a software development company what communication channels they use to exchange messages.
What answer should you expect?
It’s common practice in agile teams to organize short meetings with the team and a product owner. These meetings usually take place daily or every other day and allow team members to catch up on everything that has been done in a project.
Often, team organize so called internal demos. During such meetings, developers present features they’ve created. Participants can discuss them and even make changes, so the result would meet the client’s vision.
Apart from that and official email communication, it should be possible to quickly ask app developers questions via team communication apps such as Slack or Microsoft Teams. Additionally, you should be able to check information about ongoing activities on task management platforms like Jira.
Different communication channels facilitate cooperation and allow you to achieve better results.
9. What is your preferred pricing model (fixed price or time & material)?
Usually, mobile app developers work based on the Time & Material or fixed price billing model.
With T&M, you pay for the hours the company spends working on your project. Additionally, you also pay for the necessary resources, such as tools. This model is usually recommended because it gives you more control over the project and flexibility. It’s also easier to make changes in Time and Material, which often results in more marketable products that are better adjusted to users’ needs.
In the fixed price model, you know exactly how much you will pay for the project from the beginning. However, this may affect the product’s quality because making changes is more difficult. Plus, you must prepare a detailed project scope to determine the price.
10. How can you help shape my final product vision and ensure the best UX?
Hiring mobile app developers is not enough. You also need people to design the app, ensure its intuitiveness, and tailor it to the target audience’s needs.
If you still need to shape your app idea and determine some details about its functionalities and value propositions, you should participate in the Product Discovery process.
It usually involves UX research and workshops. The latter helps us organize information about the project and users, analyze the competition, and develop ideas for features that meet user and business needs. During the UX workshop, we examine the propositions from a technical perspective to ensure we can implement the features and check at what cost.
If you feel your product vision needs to be polished up, ask the app development team if they can conduct Discovery workshops for you and what activities they propose as part of the agenda.
Learn more about the Discovery process:
Summary: How do you find mobile app developers for the project?
Mobile app development is an important step for a business. Its success depends on many factors, and choosing the right software developers plays an important role in this process. It also requires some effort—you need to check the company’s experience, understand its approach to task execution, discuss financial and organizational matters, etc.
As a reward, however, you can enjoy an efficient app that users appreciate and boosts the growth of your online store.
Are you looking for a team that will develop your mobile app and recommend the best solutions? Contact us and tell us what goals you want to achieve.
