When you create an e-commerce mobile app for your business, you may need your app developer to integrate some third-party tools or software to expand the functionality of your application.
But what these third-party integrations could include?
Well, we will see in this blog post some of the types of integrations that you may need for your e-commerce mobile app, but before that, let’s understand how third-party integration works and what are their benefits for you.
How third-party integrations work.
Your app developer connects your application (the client) with a third-party tool or software (the server) with the help of some scripts or codes, which in most cases is a set of APIs, after which the client and the server can communicate with each other seamlessly.
Benefits of integrating third-party tools/software with your mobile app.
It saves your time and app development cost because you can easily pull tons of powerful features from the client-server just with a single integration. So your developer doesn’t need to build them from scratch.
The security, up-gradation & performance of these features are taken care of by the third-party vendors only.
Your app can send or fetch real-time data for better accuracy.
Let’s have a look at some of the common types of third-party software or tool that you may need to integrate with your mobile app.
#1 Payment gateway
Of course, you want your customers to pay online (using your e-commerce mobile app) for placing their orders with you. And to do so, you need a payment gateway.
What’s a payment gateway?
A payment gateway is a technology that helps you to accept online payments from your customers and at the same time, it enables your customers to send money to you using their preferred methods such as credit card, debit card, net banking, and so on.
Below are some of the examples of a payment gateway:
PayPal
Stripe
WorldPay
To start accepting payments on your e-commerce app, you need to subscribe to any of the payment gateways who will then provide you with an API for your app maker to integrate with your app.
#2 Accounting system
Accounting may become overwhelming & challenging as your e-commerce business grows. Therefore, it’s vital to have a robust accounting management system integrated with your e-commerce app to make your life easier.
You may have to integrate a third-party accounting system with your e-commerce app to facilitate various financial activities.
There are several accounting management systems that your app developer can integrate with your application. Some of them are below:
XERO
Quickbooks
NetSuite
Sage Accounting
What are the benefits of integrating an accounting management system?
Creating and managing invoices
Tracking sales, expenses, payments
Online banking and data bank synchronization
Automatic calculation of taxes
Security of your sensitive data
#3 Shipping gateway
Shipping is perhaps one of the important pillars of any e-commerce business. A robust shipping system will always help your business to grow seamlessly.
Your shipping norms can also help your online shoppers to make their buying decision quickly. Your potential buyers may want to know:
How quickly you can deliver their orders.
What are your shipping charges.
How customers can track their orders online.
What are the benefits that a shipping gateway can provide you with?
Online tracking of orders.
Real-time shipping status & location.
Real-time stock management.
Fewer human errors & increased efficiency.
A convenient order processing system
Timeliness and speed of delivery
Below are some of the common shipping gateways that provide APIs to integrate with your e-commerce website or mobile application:
Shippo
Shipstation
Sellbrite
Veeqo
#4 CRM Integration
CRM or Customer Relationship Management system helps you to automate the process of building a customer-oriented business. So, it is definitely another essential tool that you can integrate with your e-commerce app.
How CRM integration can help you to grow your e-commerce business?
You get easy access to all the data for each client.
You get access to the analytical tools to study user behavior.
CRM enables you to do better inventory planning & forecasting.
CRM helps you to automate your selling & follow-up processes.
You get access to useful insights such as the buying behavior of each customer.
There are several options of CRM software available that your e-commerce app developer can integrate with your mobile application such as:
Zoho
Hubspot
Capsule
Copper
#5 Live chat
In this world of tough competition, it’s important to provide your customers with excellent support. When it comes to online customer support, live chat is perhaps one of the effective yet affordable solutions to integrate with your website or mobile application.
What are the benefits of providing live chat support to your customers?
It helps to increase your sales.
It improves customer service and loyalty.
It helps you to discover customer pain points.
It offers your customers a faster problem resolution.
It provides your business with a competitive advantage.
Although your mobile application developer can help you to build your own live chat system however it may increase your overall app development cost.
If you are on a budget, you can also consider third-party live chat integration.
There are several third-party live chat options for your app developer to integrate with your application.
Zendesk
Zoho
Chatsdk
Twilio
#6 Newsletter
Having a newsletter feature in your mobile app can help you to build a database of loyal customers. You can inform your loyal customers about different promotions & offers that you may run on your e-commerce app.
Benefits of a newsletter feature:
It helps you to generate new leads.
It also helps to maintain communication with existing customers.
You can turn your leads into customers with the help of effective email marketing.
Newsletter also helps in brand exposure.
Here are some of the commonly used newsletter tools/software:
Mailchimp
Aweber
GetResponse
Constant Contact
Again, your app developer can help you to integrate any of the above-mentioned newsletter tools with your mobile application.
