How to Create a Winning Ecommerce Web App With Node.js

Make Your Ecommerce App 10x Faster By Creating It With Node.js

Sara Khan
JavaScript in Plain English

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Hire an app development company to migrate your retail business to online estore by building a simple ecommerce app with Node.js to ensure seamless functionality

With the fact that the Ecommerce industry is on its way to grossing $2,273,991 million in 2021 and 62% of people who own a smartphone have made an online purchase using their device in the past six months, it is clear that ecommerce has revolutionised the way people shop.

Gone are those days when people have time to shop from the local outskirts of the city. With the emerging technologies and innovations in the digital world, shopping anything from any corner of the world is just one voice command away from your device. The jaw-dropping evolution of ecommerce has brought a wide range of potential opportunities to the young businesses that ever dream of running a successful online business with minimal investment.

In recent times, Ecommerce platforms have become a big talk of the town. Like UberEats, Grubhub, Deliveroo are dominating the online food delivery industry, in the same way, Amazon, eBay, Ikea, Wish, Walmart are the few titans of the ecommerce industry that are ruling the domain.

But still, this is a huge market that still holds enormous potential for upcoming businesses. Developing an ecommerce app can translate into the opportunity for companies to double up their investments in a short time frame.

You don’t need to take our empty words. If you are really interested in developing a winning ecommerce app, you need to look at the global market of ecommerce and its usage.

The Global Ecommerce Market Stats and Its Usage

As we have discussed in the introduction, the ecommerce market is huge and keeps expanding at a fast pace. Most of the leading ecommerce mobile applications are now big multinational companies that are leveraging the millions of users and raising the revenue of billions with their app.

  • According to the statistics, the global retail e-commerce sales amounted to $3.5 trillion in 2019, which is projected to gross $6.5 trillion by the end of 2023.
  • As per the stats, Asia Pacific dominated the market for ecommerce with a share of 55.3% in 2019 and expected to witness the fastest growth from 2020 to 2027.
  • A study reveals that North America and Europe are anticipated to witness steady growth over the forecast period, whereas the Middle East and Africa are expected to witness significant growth in the forthcoming years owing to the growing young population and rapidly evolving shopping market.

In a Nutshell: Considering these statistics, it seems tempting to become a part of this thriving industry, as it’s already a cash cow for the world’s leading online retailers. But on the same note, the ecommerce sector has become more competitive than ever. Since selling your products and services is no more left an eye-centric concept for customers, therefore, staying ahead of the market curve is one of the most common challenges that businesses are dealing with today. In such a scenario, the development methodologies and technologies can bring a great difference to your business success.

And that’s where Node.Js for ecommerce app development has taken the momentum!

While it’s easy to access and cost-effective to use, hence making it an instant favourite of every mobile app development company and businesses all around the world.

But the central question is how? To help you get an answer to this question, you need to have a look at a detailed explanation to understand why we and the rest of the world have fallen in love with Node.js for ecommerce app development.

Highlights of the blog:

  • Challenges Faced By An Ecommerce Industry
  • Get Your Back With Node.js — What’s Node.js And How It Can Benefit Your Business In 2022?
  • How To Build an Ecommerce App With Node.js? — A Step-By-Step Guide to Follow
  • How Much Does It Cost To Develop an Ecommerce App With Node.js in 2022?
  • Final Words: Where To Go Next?

Let’s get into the depth of each point to understand what are the real facts and how Node.js can help you survive in this thriving industry.

1. Major Challenges Faced by Ecommerce Sector

Undoubtedly, the ecommerce sector is booming every day and boldly paving its way in our lives and ensuring a seamless shopping experience. Increasing usage of e-commerce also lifts the demand for ecommerce app development.

Those were the days of the past when developing the ecommerce website were the only goal of retailers. With the increasing usage of smartphones, the wave of web apps for businesses and selling worldwide through their online platform has become more common trends these days.

However, a matter of fact is there are a number of challenges to deal with when you are planning to hire a mobile app developer and develop an ecommerce application for this competitive market.

Here’s The Truth About Ecommerce App Development That No One Reveals You!

In the wake of Covid-19 when it was officially declared a pandemic by the WHO, people from all across the globe started stocking up the things. Whether it be medical supplies or household essentials, online stores were started struggling to keep up with the app. Well, a node.js app development company can provide you with a customer-centric solution, but before that, it’s important to evaluate the challenges in details:

Here are the most critical problems that you may deal with while running an ecommerce app:

Challenge 1: Beautiful Frontend with Poor Backend- Turns to Big Failure!

Most businesses focus on choosing the best UX/UI designs to make their screens look beautiful, engaging and attractive. While it is important to focus. But what if your app fails to handle the scalability and lack of generating, maintaining and delivering the information to the frontend displays of a user?

Challenge 2: Building a scalable and complex ecommerce interface is a tough job!

Ecommerce apps are majorly depending on the elements such as payment gateways, logistics, shipping, logistics, supplier, product catalogue. Overall, these elements increase the complexity and make it challenging to maintain excellent performance. Though it makes sense to hire a mobile app developer that ensures excellent performance by having you a back of Node.js.

Challenge 3: The Frontend of the App Majorly Depending on the Backend

In relation to the last point, integrating such elements into the app can slow down the back work activities and affect the app performance. At the backend, there will be hundreds or thousands of requests that are instantly pinged on the app from all across the globe. And carrying out such kinds of requests is quite challenging. Handling too much request at the backend will slow down the load time and that ultimately impact your search engine rankings. An ideal approach is that backend load time that should not take more than 20% of your total load time, which should be 200ms or less.

In the Nutshell: With the availability of a variety of technologies, tools and frameworks, building an ecommerce app is not a far-fetched task for developers. But staying ahead in the market and overcoming these challenges is something serious to deal with.

When it comes to developing an ecommerce website, JavaScript always serves the best environment but Node.js mobile app developers are highly recommended to use Node.js in any ecommerce store. The major reason for using this Node.js environment is cross-platform and highly scalable and robust, which is the standalone requirements of the businesses.

But before discussing further Node.js, let’s drill straight into the introduction on how Node.js can benefit you in your business?

2. Get Your Back With Node.js — What’s Node.js And How It Can Benefit Your Business In 2022?

When it comes to developing a web app, Angular.js, React and Vue.js are the top choice of programming languages for excellent frontend development, that’s where Node.js empowers your web app with a strong backend.

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Quick Introduction of Node.js!

If putting it into a simple language, Node.js is an open-source runtime environment. It’s a cross-platform solution that enables JavaScript execution outside of a browser. It makes it possible to create server-side and networking applications and make them run fast as it uses Chrome’s V8 JavaScript engine.

V8 is Google’s JavaScript engine which is free-to-use, ensuring excellent performance and written in C++. Therefore, Node.js is best suited for creating data-intensive real-time apps that can seamlessly run on multiple devices.

Furthermore, its asynchronous and event-driven architecture and high scalability, has already won the hearts of developers from all over the world and has become a choice of multiple corporations and tech companies including Netflix, Amazon, Paypal and more. In fact, it also powers the backend of eBay and AliExpress.

But now the question is, why should businesses look for Node.js ecommerce app development?

The Beauty of Building Ecommerce Application with Node.js

Using an ecommerce app is always a fun-filled experience for the user, but developing this platform is always a complex job for a software development company. To make all the elements work together in your ecommerce app, you need a right technology that will support it.

And, undoubtedly, Node.js is the right match for your ecommerce platform.

Let’s find out how?

A. Excellent App Performance

Developing an ecommerce app with Node.js is a worthy decision as it ensures a perfect balance between frontend and backend load time due to its Asynchronous nature, which ultimately translates into better app performance.

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B. Usage of Common Language for Front-end and Backend Save You on Budget

Node.js is a JavaScript-based environment and most of the leading front-end frameworks such as React, Angular, Ember are using the same language. Therefore, you can create an ecommerce application, written in one language. This will cut down the need of hiring an app developer for front-end and backend and streamline the development process, as a Node.js app developer can easily understand both sides of the codebase much better.

C. Ability to Handle Large User Base

Since Node.js is single-threaded and has event-driven architecture, therefore, it provides the ability to handle multiple concurrent users at a time. This is where other web technologies lack and creates an additional thread for each request.This drains up the whole memory until the processing gets over. Node.js helps developers to make the best use of event loop and callbacks for I/O operations, which is the classic Node.js way of breaking the long-running requests into smaller chunks.

D. Lightweight and Much Faster Response Time

Since it is based on JavaScript and uses the same language for both client-side and server-side scripting, therefore, Node.js ensure faster development and quick response time to the app.

According to a Google study, 40% of people abandon an app that takes more than 3 seconds to load. And when your project is ecommerce, every millisecond can make a huge difference.

PayPal has an interesting story of how they have migrated from Java to Node.js which unfortunately give the site an 100% increase in business availability. After using Node.js, in its backend, PayPal experienced a 35% fall in their response time for the page and made up the startup time 200ms faster.

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E. Various Plugins And Packages in NPM

Node.js can ensure faster development and cut down the need of writing everything from a scratch. Node.js comes with a lot of packages that can be easily implemented in your app, therefore, developers can leverage open-source solutions and enhance the development process.

Some of the Additional Benefits That Makes Node.js a Winner

  • Data streaming is important for an ecommerce web app, and Node.js is a very helpful tool for this.
  • The big community of Node.js is a great help for developers as developing an ecommerce app can be complex for the leading mobile app development companies.
  • With the availability of countless plugins, a developer can easily elaborate your ecommerce website without any hassle and build a well-polished Node.js shopping cart.
  • Web app builds with Node.js are lightweight and load quicker which is one of the most common issues with ecommerce applications.

By knowing all such advantages of Node.js, surely many of you are curious to hire an app developer for the ecommerce project and wanted to know the cost of development. But before that, let’s rush to a step-to-step guide of developing an ecommerce app with Node.js.

3. How To Create an Ecommerce App With Node.js? A Step-By-Step Guide to Follow

Building an ecommerce app can be complex but a rewarding experience too. Here’s our tutorial that takes you through the steps involved in app development. Whether you are an entrepreneur or a developer, both can learn — how to make the most of the platform.

So let’s get started with the tutorial.

Step 1. Using an Agile Development Approach

To make your ecommerce app running smoothly, it is both important and recommended to update your app frequently. But to perform such a complex task, it is best to leverage an Agile methodology for the project.

Step 2. Set Up a Great Development Team

The success of the app greatly depends on the skills of the app development team that they pour into your project. So to build a Node.js ecommerce app that helps you stay ahead in the competitive market, you need to hire an ecommerce app development company with the Node.js development team including:

  • Business Analyst
  • Node.js App Developer
  • Quality Assurance Engineers
  • UX/UI Designer
  • Project Manager

Step 3. Download and Install Node.js

To download Node.js, you can click here on the homepage. Here you can find the platform-specific installers.

Install Node.js using “Node Package Manager”(NPM). NPM is one of the popular package managers, as it has a large collection of reusable code. You can click here to learn how to install Node.js for your platform.

Step 4. Choose a Reputed Node.js Ecommerce Framework

There are several Node.js frameworks out there, but let’s find out which one can benefit your ecommerce business:

4.1. KOA: It is an open-source web framework for Node.js that claims to be the most robust foundation for APIs and web applications. Among all, KOA.js was built as a platform for fast and seamless server writing.

Highlights of KOA:

-It is light, flexible and fast to access.
-It ensures better customization and a wide choice of modules for ecommerce app development.
-Koa.js allows developers to eliminate the callbacks, minimize error probability and improve error handling.

4.2. TOTAL.js Framework: It provides a framework that supports several use cases including ecommerce apps. So here are the benefits and features to have a look at:

(a)Ensures faster development as it is a full-featured framework.
(b)Developers can build a high-performance ecommerce web app, that is easy to scale up.
(c)This framework comes with high-quality documentation
(d)Developers can access its tutorials for instant help.
(e)This framework has a NoSQL database, which is important for ecommerce.

4.3. Schema.IO Framework: It is an ecommerce Node.js framework that offers you a wide choice of features and makes the entire development process easier for the developers.

a. Provide powerful APIs covering e-commerce functions.
b. Configuration of the ecommerce store is easier by using the admin dashboard of this framework.
c. Customization of the ecommerce app is easier and more seamless

Step 5. Manage Your Ecommerce Project With Scrum Technique

The best approach to manage this project is to use the “Scrum technique”. But to use it rightly, you need to develop a Scrum development team. So you may be required:

A cross-functional team where designers, developers, testers and more can work together is called the “Scrum team”.

  • Project Manager: They perform the role of a “Scrum master”.
  • Product Owner Who provides the requirements as features in a document, which is called the “product backlog”.
  • Iterations in a Scrum project, that is called “Sprints”.
  • To make everything functional, the team conducts a “Sprint planning meeting” where they estimate the features and slot different features in different sprints, depending on the overall priority of the project.

So finally, you have an idea about Node.js Ecommerce app development. But now the major concern is, how much will it cost you to develop?

How Much Does it Cost To Develop Node.js Ecommerce Application for Your Business in 2022?

Calculating the cost of the ecommerce app development starts with making a wireframe. It is nothing but the visual architecture of your app that explains to you how your app will look and function. Usually, organizations hire a web developer that drafts multiple wireframes for the project by understanding and analysing the needs of the clients from all perspectives. And the cost of each wireframe is depending on the complexity of the pages. On average, the cost of wireframing 2to 3 pages would be $300 — $500.

  • Next, it comes to the designing which is the main part of the app. Designing the interface of the web app will cost you from $3000 to $15,000+ depending upon the complexity of the design.
  • Third, Expertise of the Node.js Developer! The hourly cost of the developer can greatly vary as per the level of knowledge and expertise in handling projects. Usually, the hourly cost of hiring an ecommerce app developer starts from $15+ in UAE and can go to $150+ in the USA.
  • Next, features of the ecommerce app can bring a great difference in the app development cost. The more complex features lead to more development hours and higher cost.
  • Maintenance and support are essential to make your app run seamlessly even after developing with Node.js and integrating the best APIs.

So overall, if we calculate the average cost of the Node.js ecommerce app development then it can start from $10k to $50k, depending upon all such factors.

Conclusion

Node.js is undoubtedly the best choice of tools for high-end web app developments, particularly when you are developing an ecommerce app or a real-time application that is integrated with a number of elements. Deciding to develop an ecommerce app with Node.js is a sensible decision, but also need to understand how much it will benefit and cost you in future.

However, by hiring a web development company you can directly get the answer to your question related to cost, features, functionalities, the expertise of the Node.js developer, third-party services, and maintenance and support you may require for the application.

Hopefully, this blog has addressed most of your concerns related to ecommerce app development with Node.js. Still, if you have a query at any point, then you can drop a comment below.

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IT Consultant with 10+ years of industry experience, guiding the best app development trends, tech and methodologies with a good writing flair. — Xicom.ae