App development is the process of designing, building, and maintaining software applications that solve specific problems. Tools like no-code app builders and AI assistants have cut the time and cost of building an app from months to days. For ecommerce business, building the right app can speed up checkout or automate operational work.
Alex Pilon, a Shopify developer and AI advocate, says, “The cost of any software effort is essentially trending toward zero.” These days, you can build an app or redesign your site within a day for a few dollars worth of AI tokens, whereas before you might’ve spent a thousand dollars with a design agency. “What was normal only a few years ago would now seem to be almost absurd,” Alex says.
For ecommerce businesses, building custom apps is an accessible way to create bespoke shopping experiences. Here are the fundamentals of app development and how to use it to elevate your business.
What is app development?
App development is the process of designing and maintaining software applications for mobile devices, web browsers, or back-end systems. An app can be as simple as a single-purpose tool, like a custom loyalty program widget, or as complex as a full-featured mobile shopping experience for iOS and Android operating systems.
BÉIS, a luxury travel accessory brand, used Tapcart to develop an app that gives their customers exclusive access to new products and content. The goal: drive engagement with push notifications.
Types of apps suited for ecommerce
For ecommerce businesses, apps serve two distinct needs. Customer-facing apps improve the shopping experience with features like fast checkout and personalized product recommendations. Internal or back-end apps tackle operational needs like inventory management or custom reporting dashboards.
The development approach varies depending on the type of app you’re building. Here are types of customer-facing and back-end apps you can develop to serve your business:
Customer-facing apps
These apps put your brand directly in your customers’ hands:
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Mobile shopping apps. Research shows that smartphone users spend around 90% of their mobile time within apps. Australian sportswear brand LSKD’s mobile app helped earn a 32.5% revenue increase in the first month and 45.3% in the second.
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Storefront apps. These apps plug into your existing storefront or ecommerce platform and enhance specific moments in the buying journey. A personalization app can serve personalized product recommendations or add features like wish lists, using Swym.
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Web applications. A web app is a full, interactive tool that runs entirely in the browser. It works across desktop computers and mobile devices without requiring a download. Tools like shoe customizers work well as web apps because they tend to be too complex to add as a storefront app, but don’t warrant a downloadable mobile shopping app.
Backend and operations apps
Internal tools serve your organization’s employees rather than end customers:
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Inventory and operations apps. These tools help manage inventory and fulfillment (like ShipStation) or forecast demand (like Inventory Planner). Platforms like Airtable or Shopify Flow let you build them without a developer, using drag-and-drop interfaces.
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Custom reporting dashboards. Pull together data from multiple sources into one view to get a clearer picture of sales, margins, and other key metrics. An app like Triple Whale unifies sales and customer data in one dashboard, while Better Reports lets you build custom reports across your store’s data.
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Integrations and API connectors. An integration is a connection between your store and a system, while an application programming interface (API) is what lets two separate systems share data. An API connector is what links your store to existing systems, like your enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, so data flows automatically without manual entry or mismatched records.
No-code vs. low-code app development
Low-code platforms let developers move faster by writing minimal code on top of prebuilt components, while no-code platforms let non-technical business owners build functional apps without writing a single line of code. Both have gathered traction in recent years. The low-code market is projected to reach $58.2 billion by 2029.
Vibe coding, an emerging no-code method, lets you build software by describing your vision to AI in natural language rather than writing code by hand.
“It means you can just ask AI for something and build software on the spot. You don’t need to be a software engineer or have formal training to build an app,” Alex Pilon says. “All the software development we did over the past 25 years has been compressed into something you can access at your fingertips.”
How to develop an app
- Pick your development tools
- Choose between native and hybrid app architecture
- Set up your development environment and API scopes
- Use good design practices
- Plan your back end and integrations
- Test on real devices before launch
Developing an app starts with defining the single most important action a user needs to take in it. The more precisely you define that outcome, the more accurately you can build. Once you’ve identified the problem your app solves, follow these steps to make it a reality:
1. Pick your development tools
Choosing your development stack depends on your business goals. Building within the Shopify framework means your app runs on Shopify’s commerce platform and taps directly into your store’s data, checkout, and payments through its APIs. In short, it offers custom functionality on top of the infrastructure Shopify maintains.
If you’re building within the Shopify framework, key development tools include:
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No-code mobile app builders. These suit a branded shopping app, rather than a custom-built product with features you can’t get off the shelf. Shopify App Store platforms like Tapcart, Plobal Apps, and SHOPNEY let you build iOS and Android apps directly from your Shopify store data, no coding required. Use drag-and-drop editors to design the user interface, integrate with your existing Shopify apps, and push directly to the Apple App Store and Google Play.
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Shopify’s developer tools.Shopify Functions lets you build custom commerce logic, like discounts and payment options, on server-side code that runs within Shopify’s infrastructure. Custom Apps builds apps exclusively for your store through the Dev Dashboard, which can manage version control (tracking changes to your code), API scope (the permissions that control what store data your app can read), and testing for custom apps.
2. Choose between native and hybrid app architecture
In mobile commerce, choosing between native and cross-platform app architecture is a consequential decision that impacts everything from your budget to long-term maintenance. Here’s how they differ:
Native app architecture
Native apps are built for a specific platform using its native languages, like Swift or Objective-C for iOS, or Kotlin for Android. They deliver the best raw performance and the most platform-aligned user interfaces with full access to device features like camera, sensors, and background processing. The main trade-off is maintaining two separate codebases, because each platform uses its own language, which increases cost and operational complexity.
Cross-platform app architecture
Cross-platform apps use frameworks like React Native or Flutter to write a single codebase that deploys to both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. These are sometimes called hybrid apps, though traditional hybrid apps wrap web technology in a native shell using tools like Ionic.
Cross-platform has become the go-to choice for ecommerce sellers who want to be on both iOS and Android without doubling their development budget. Frameworks like React Native also support Hot Reload or Fast Refresh, which lets developers inject changes without rebuilding the entire app.
For most Shopify store owners exploring mobile commerce for the first time, a cross-platform approach or a no-code mobile app builder like Tapcart or Plobal Apps tends to offer a balance of capability and cost.
3. Set up your development environment and API scopes
How you set up your development environment depends on your path. If you’re building a custom app on Shopify, the Shopify CLI, a command-line tool for building apps from your terminal, does the heavy lifting. It scaffolds your app, runs a local development server, and connects it to a development store where you can test as you go. Running “app dev” gives you a live preview that updates as you code.
This is also where you define the permissions your app requests, known as your API scopes. For example, contact lens brand Daysoft built a custom app in its Shopify admin to speed up phone orders by pulling each customer’s previous prescription. An app like this calls for access to customer and order history, plus the ability to create orders.
If you’re using a no-code builder, there’s no environment to manage; the platform is the environment. You install the builder, like Tapcart, from the Shopify App Store, connect your store, and the platform handles data and hosting for you.
If you’re developing a custom app outside of Shopify’s framework, you own the entire setup. You’ll assemble your own toolchain, including:
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A code editor. Where you write your code. Visual Studio Code and JetBrains are common options.
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Language runtimes and frameworks. The software that runs your chosen programming language, like Node.js for JavaScript, and the pre-built foundations that speed up development, like React.
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Version control. Tools like Git, a system that tracks every change to your code, so you can review its history or roll back errors.
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API credentials and scopes. If your app pulls Shopify data, register the app to get the keys that authorize its access to Shopify’s APIs.
4. Use good design practices
Invest in your user interface (UI) and user experience design (UX design). In mobile, good UI and UX means fast load times, logical navigation, and easy input methods, like large tap targets and minimal typing. It also means designing for the context in which users will actually be in: on a phone, likely on the go, and perhaps with a limited attention span.
If you’re using an app builder, the platform’s templates largely handle this step. Tools like Figma and Balsamiq support the lo-fi and hi-fi wireframing and prototyping required to design high-quality custom apps. For a custom build, foundational resources like The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman cover the basics of good design.
5. Plan your back end and integrations
If you’re using a no-code app builder, this step is handled for you because the platform manages hosting. But if you’re developing a custom app, you’ll need to map out how your back end will handle data and traffic.
If you’re building within the Shopify Framework, the first step is to determine which Shopify application programming interfaces (APIs) your app will need. APIs let two different apps communicate and share data with each other. For custom user experiences, lean on the Storefront API, which exposes buyer-facing data like products, carts, and checkout; for internal logistics or order management tools, use the Admin API, which reads and writes store data like orders and inventory.
Once you know which APIs your app calls for, you’ll need somewhere to run your app’s back end: the server-side code that handles requests. For hosting and server-side logic (back-end code), cloud providers like AWS and Google Cloud offer serverless architectures that let you manage data and services without maintaining physical hardware.
How you structure your back end is as essential as where you host it. For a mostly custom application, consider microservices architecture, which isolates core tasks like checkout into independent services, so a glitch in one system won’t take your entire store offline.
6. Test on real devices before launch
Emulators and simulators are useful, but they don’t replicate the actual experience on a physical device. If you’re shipping a native iOS or Android app, distribute test builds through TestFlight for iOS and Google Play’s internal testing tool for Android. A device cloud like BrowserStack can help you test across different screen sizes, OS versions, and network conditions before you submit to the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.
Most no-code builders provide a preview app to test on your device. And if you’re building within Shopify’s framework, test on a development store using the Shopify CLI’s live preview, which mirrors your changes before you deploy. (It’s worth noting that App Store submissions take time: Apple’s review process can take several days.)
User feedback informs your app at every stage. Research from real customers should inform what features you choose and how you design your app. Once your app is live, collect feedback systematically through in-app prompts and app store reviews. Use it to prioritize new features based on what actually improves the outcomes you defined at the start.
App development FAQ
Do ecommerce businesses need custom apps?
Not always. No-code app builders and Shopify’s native tools can meet most needs without custom development. However, businesses with unique workflows, complex integrations, or specific customer experience goals may find that custom apps deliver meaningful competitive advantages.
How much does app development cost?
Custom mobile app development typically ranges from $30,000 for simple tools to $300,000 for complex enterprise systems. By contrast, low- or no-code app builders, such as Tapcart and SHOPNEY, allow merchants to launch with entry-level plans starting under $250 per month.
What is the difference between custom and no-code app development?
Custom app development gives you full control over every feature, integration, and user experience, but requires developer expertise; no-code development is faster and cheaper, using visual editors and pre-built templates that anyone can configure without writing code.
