Top Shopify Mobile App Development Services
Looking to build a mobile app for your Shopify store? Unless you have a high degree of technical expertise within your team (and most ecommerce businesses do not), you’ll need the help of a Shopify mobile app development service.
Finding the right mobile app developer or development company for your project can be difficult and frustrating, and if choosing the wrong one can result in serious setbacks to your timeline and budget.
We’re here to help. With our years of experience in mobile app development for ecommerce stores, we’ll explain a few highly-rated options to choose from, and offer some advice on the best Shopify mobile app development company for you.
Best Shopify Mobile App Development Service: MobiLoud
In our (admittedly biased) opinion, our company, MobiLoud, is the best mobile app development service for Shopify businesses.
MobiLoud is a white-glove, full-service solution to turn websites into mobile apps. It works for any kind of website, on any platform or tech stack, but is perfect for Shopify stores.
We help you build full-featured, professional, native mobile apps for your website, ready to launch in less than a month.
Your apps will have everything a high-quality shopping app needs, including:
- A home screen icon and app store listing
- Native mobile tab menu
- Native navigation UI
- Customizable splash screens, loading indicators and spinners
- Build-in push notifications via OneSignal
- Abandoned cart notifications
- Social login with Google, Facebook, and others
- Automatic rating prompts
- Built-in app analytics
- Universal link support
- Complete freedom for customization and integration with other apps and tools
Your app can do just about everything that an app from a multi-billion dollar brand like Nike, Target or Amazon can do, but with just a tiny fraction of the cost, complexity and overhead.
What Makes MobiLoud Different
MobiLoud is not a traditional mobile app development agency. We don’t have a bloated team of developers, and create complex, custom-built apps for you from the ground up.
That’s not what you need.
Your Shopify website, in all likelihood, already works well and converts customers on mobile. For your app, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel.
You essentially just need to replicate the same experience from your mobile website inside of an app, and make a few small tweaks to give it a fully native experience.
That’s what we do.
By doing that, we can ship your app much quicker, with much less hassle, and significantly cheaper than any other Shopify mobile app development service.
And the end result will be the same (potentially even better, as you’ll have no trouble transferring any integrations or custom-built features from your website).
It will be easier to maintain your mobile app, and you won’t need to sign an expensive, long-term contract just to keep your app up and running.
What Kind of Apps Has MobiLoud Built?
At MobiLoud, we’ve built apps for more than 2,000 companies, including numerous high-traffic, high-revenue Shopify brands.
Some examples include:
Rainbow Shops: MobiLoud was the fourth attempt Rainbow made at building the perfect app. They previously tried native development and DIY app builders, but found our approach was exactly what they needed, without any unnecessary hassle or overhead.
Bestseller: A fashion company with more than 20 brands under their umbrella, Bestseller used us to launch apps for some of their most successful brands, including Jack & Jones, Only, Only & Sons and Vero Moda.
Sleefs: This sportswear brand built a visually striking UI on their website, plus unique features like custom product configurators. They had trouble finding an option that fit their budget, and would also let them keep all the features they’d built for the website, until they found MobiLoud.
Read more case studies of successful MobiLoud users here.
How Our Process Works
The beauty of what we do is how straightforward it is. We provide end-to-end white-glove service, taking care of everything to do with your mobile app.
- You'll start with a free demo call to discuss your requirements, view an interactive preview of your site as an app, and for us to answer any questions you have before proceeding further.
- When you’re ready to move forward, you can choose the plan that fits your needs, and then hand it off to our team to develop your mobile app.
- In a couple of weeks, the first version of your app will be ready for testing, and you can install it on your own device and get back to us with any feedback or change requests.
- We’ll take your feedback on board and build a final version of your mobile app ready for launch. We also submit your app to the app stores for publishing, handling the whole submission process for you.
Once your app is live, we’ll take care of technical maintenance and updates for your app.
Your mobile app will be linked to your Shopify store, so you can manage the design and functionality of your app simply by editing your website, eliminating the need to pay tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars per year for app developers to work on your apps.
More Highly Rated Shopify App Development Services
If you want to check out other Shopify mobile app development services, here are some highly-regarded options to consider.
Cake
Cake is an ecommerce agency and Shopify Plus partner, and offers a range of services for online stores, from consulting to marketing to creative to development.
Their development services include frontend and backend development, including mobile app development, where they build custom apps using React Native.
They also build custom push notifications for your app, and take care of testing, pre-go live checks, and app store submission.
Mobikasa
Mobikasa is a worldwide ecommerce agency with a footprint in New York, Los Angeles, London, Dubai and New Delhi.
They work with stores on Shopify, Magento and all other popular ecommerce platforms, offering a full suite of technical services, including mobile app development.
They’re flexible in their approach, able to build either native or cross-platform mobile apps, linked to your web store either way.
Successive Digital
Successive Digital is primarily a software development agency, where some others are focused on ecommerce first and software second.
They have a track record of building functional apps in many different verticals, including ecommerce. They claim proficiency in many different areas of app development, and can build native apps for iOS and Android, or cross-platform apps using React Native, Flutter or Ionic.
Spiral Scout
Spiral Scout is a San Francisco-based software development agency, with experience in ecommerce and working with Shopify stores.
Alongside web development, web design and other services, they provide mobile app development services, with the ability to build either native or cross-platform.
Sunrise Integration
Sunrise Integration is a digital agency and Shopify Plus partner, with extensive experience dealing with ecommerce stores.
Their mobile app development team focused primarily on cross-platform technologies using React Native and Flutter.
Wondering what the difference is between native and cross-platform apps? Click here to learn everything you need to know.
Other Ways to Build a Mobile App for Shopify Stores
Let’s look at some other options available to you if you’re looking to develop an app for your Shopify store.
Shopify App Builders
If you look in the Shopify App Store, you’ll find a lot of Shopify mobile app builders to choose from.
These no-code tools let you develop and launch your Shopify app yourself, without hiring developers or an agency. They’re cheap, and let you launch an app fast, sometimes in as little as a few days.
You’ll need to make some sacrifices with no-code tools like these, however. There’s only so much you can do to customize your app outside of their templates, and some of the features on your website won’t work in the app.
They also take a fair amount of work, both to build an app that works and looks good, and to keep your app updated and make changes after launch.
Ultimately, these tools can work well for simple apps, but if you want your app to be a key driver of revenue for your business, you might want to consider a different option.
Click here to read more about why we don’t recommend using DIY app builders.
Hiring Your Own Developers
Alternatively, you could hire your own developers instead of using an agency.
You can look for developers on sites like Clutch, Upwork or LinkedIn, and manage them yourself.
While this gives you more control over your project, and may save you some money, unless you have experience hiring developers and managing a mobile app project, it will be far too much effort, and could easily turn into a nightmare.
Even if everything goes well, you’ll still need to keep developers on staff (or on retainer) after your app is live, for updates and maintenance - which won't be cheap.
PWA
One more option is to turn your site into a Progressive Web App, instead of a fully fledged mobile app.
A Progressive Web App (PWA) is a faster, more responsive version of a website, which looks and feels like an app but still runs in the browser.
Users can download a launcher icon for your PWA to their home screen, and PWAs can do a little more with push notifications than a typical website.
The advantage of this is that PWAs are much cheaper and simpler to build than mobile apps; you just need to make a few small backend changes to your website.
However, the benefits don’t compare to the benefits of having your own mobile app, so turning your site into a PWA is not really a viable alternative to true mobile app development.
Want to Create a Shopify Mobile App? Start Here
Shoppers on mobile apps spend longer in your store, they buy more, they spend more, and they buy more often.
MobiLoud cuts down the cost and effort involved in developing mobile apps, giving Shopify merchants a way to launch their own app without investing hundreds of thousands of dollars.
If your site is fast, responsive and easy to use on mobile, you’re already 90% of the way towards having an amazing mobile app.
We’ll do the rest for you. There’s zero risk and little to no overhead, making it a no-brainer to go ahead and launch your own app.
Book a free preview of your Shopify app now, and see what our Shopify mobile app development service can do for you.