ShopApp Automates Retail App Publishing

ECommerce platform Ecwid‘s new offering is aiming to make publishing a native mobile app a snap for retailers.

Yesterday (March 29), the company announced the release of ShopApp, which lets merchants provide their own, branded automated mobile application for iOS or Android automatically from an existing online store — without having to write any code because, as a press release explains, ShopApp is bundled into Ecwid’s core product and does not rely on third-party extensions.

It’s a process, Ecwid touts, far simpler than the traditional means for a retailer to publish a mobile app, an operation that otherwise requires creation from the ground up, submission to app stores (namely iTunes and Google Play) and constant updates related to maintenance and synchronization.

ShopApp is particularly suited to smaller retailers, attests the company behind it, allowing them to take advantage of the growing opportunity indicated by the statistic (from Internet Retailer) showing that 42 percent of all mobile sales generated by the leading 500 retailers in 2014 came from mobile apps, as well as the fact that (according to Jupiter Research) more than 2 billion consumers will complete a mobile commerce transaction by the end of 2017.

In explaining ShopApp’s unique functionality, Ecwid notes that the tool allows customers to check out with Apple Pay or Android Pay, as well as giving them access to mobile-exclusive features, such as push notifications and geography-based promotional items. The release also states that ShopApp’s store content (including inventory, prices and product descriptions) is fully synchronized and integrated with a retailer’s online store.

“With ShopApp, Ecwid is making a huge leap in how native eCommerce mobile apps are created and operate for smaller retailers globally,” commmented Ecwid President Jim O’Hara in the press release. “Similar to how the dramatic innovation in Web development introduced by DIY sitebuilders, like Wix, WordPress and Weebly, democratized website creation, Ecwid now allows our merchants to create their own eCommerce apps instantly.”