E-commerce Mobile App Development for one of the largest retailers in Ukraine
- Swift
- Kotlin
- PHP
- Firebase
- Xcode
- Jenkins
ELDORADO BY THE NUMBERS
Founded in 1999, ELDORADO is a chain of household appliances and electronics stores in Ukraine, presented in an offline and online environment.
About the client & the story behind them
Being a major force in the Ukrainian market for electronics and home appliances, the company had faced challenges meeting the ongoing trend on e-commerce app development and growing app user demands. Their goal has always been to make shopping enjoyable by offering a huge selection of top-notch goods, first-rate services, and knowledgeable staff. Convenient mobile apps were an element lacking in this ecosystem as the previous app versions did not live up to expectations.
The previously existing ELDORADO application did not function as intended, the business function was not carried out, and the prior contractor was unable to complete the tasks given to them. The client’s desire was to increase the functionality and dependability of an app that hardly functioned at all due to frequent crashes. Its market rating of that time was 1.4.
Additionally, the client wanted to create an ecosystem that was secure, efficient, and of the highest caliber for both iOS and Android platforms. This was crucial for them since it would promote user loyalty and draw in new customers, thus boosting business’s sales and earnings.
The client’s plans also included the development of a complete state-of-the-art ecosystem for each user from the first purchase to full-service support.
ELDORADO decided on Devlight after some of their partners personally recommended us. The company also looked at our portfolio, which showed that we have the necessary knowledge of and experience with creating e-commerce mobile applications. Additionally, Devlight’s suggested approach for project transferring and flow were exactly what ELDORADO needed, which gave all parties the confidence to begin working together.
Request
The main request was for the iOS and Android applications to be available for end users in a stable, continuous manner. In order to maintain and scale app functionality for both iOS and Android platforms, it was also important to solve codebase issues. We aimed to enhance and expand the #1 e-commerce application, ensuring it meets all user requirements with essential features.
Critical user interface issues led to an increase in demand for a project transfer. Fixes for frequent software issues seen by end customers were among the requests listed.
Challenges and Limitation
The main challenge for ELDORADO and Devlight was to restore the reputation of the iOS and Android apps among existing users while simultaneously preventing app removal and improving overall performance. This critical criterion was assessed using services such as Firebase, Google Play Console, and App Store Connect. The urgency was intensified by the very limited time available to address all bugs before commencing the main development phase, which would introduce new features.
In addition to tackling these challenges, there was a strong focus on ensuring app installation activation among new users. This involved creating a safe, effective, and high-quality ecosystem for both iOS and Android platforms, thereby promoting user engagement and satisfaction. With the ultimate goal of delivering a seamless experience.
Problems we faced
- Fix all critical errors and crashes in the shortest possible time
- Reconstruct all the application architecture
- Reorganize the code base for further development
- Solve the critical user experience problems
- Return and increase user loyalty and number to the application
- Enlarge the communication interactions with users in app
- Boost the effectiveness of marketing campaigns
- Setting up correct analytics from the app
How we did it — solutions, approach, methodology
Considering the stability of the application, the client had doubts about the quality of the code base. To make a decision on developing or rewriting the application from scratch, it is necessary to conduct a series of audits (code, design, documentation, and QA) and then consider each of the points in more detail.
Code Review phase+project documentation audit
Determining the possibility of maintenance of the code and scaling was the first step of the ELDORADO project preparation. A review of the code and documentation is necessary to delve into the structure of the code and understand the technology. Without this stage, working with someone else’s (perhaps poorly written) code promises financial and moral losses.
The task of the Code Review Stage is to determine its quality, in particular, to determine the peculiarities of the structure used:
Is everything well commented? Is regularly updated documentation accompanying the code? Does the code match the architecture? Is the code easy to maintain? What are the possibilities of code porting? Can the code be edited by developers who are not the original authors? Has the code been regularly refactored to reduce technical debt?
Consider code repositories that help you safely version track your code to avoid bugs and prepare it for release. If, during the code review, it is determined that the project is not maintainable and scalable, options may be offered:
- Rewrite the project from scratch;
- The code was written more than 3 years ago — rewriting is faster and cheaper than trying to update the code to the current version;
- The code is complicated and incomprehensible — it will be easier to rewrite the code than to try to understand it;
- Does not meet scalability and performance standards — these are important parameters to consider in the project architecture;
After this project’s review, it was suggested to rewrite the code from scratch, but considering the client’s business goals and limited deadlines, it was decided to refactor critical modules before starting a new development. The refactoring of the following modules ought to be done in parallel with the development in the order of their priority.
UI/IX Audit phase
A UI/UX audit is a study with an emphasis on user experience. The main goal of the UI/UX audit is to find the key interface problems of the application and propose ways to solve them. As a result of the audit, ELDORADO received a report on the following:
- Conducting a heuristic UX analysis of the existing application;
- Usability (convenience of the program for the user);
- Compliance of the existing application with the documented design;
- A score of the current UI/UX on a scale.
Forming recommendations and correcting comments for improving user experience were provided.
Acceptance QA Testing phase
If you do not need to rewrite the project from scratch, then the next step is to document existing errors carefully. This is necessary to avoid disputes about the causes of a particular problem.
The more code that is added (or updated), the more likely you will meet bugs there. To find out if this bug is new or inherited, you need a document that describes the results of acceptance testing. This is usually documented in Google Docs (Confluence) as a description of the sequence of actions and the result it leads to. Photos and videos are also attached.
A QA audit carried out by Devlight evaluated how well-organized and optimized the app’s QA process was to ensure no significant workflow flaws adversely affected the STLC. The effective optimization of QA processes can prevent development delays, poor planning, overspending, final product problems, personnel turnover, etc.
Product Analysis: A Collaborative Approach of Technical and Marketing Team
It is important to understand that analytical data is an important indicator of the quality of work of the mobile applications themselves from the practical side, as well as the department of marketing and category management. These are indicators that you need to work with constantly (especially customer reviews and indicators of user interests).
Thus, our team undertook the analysis of indicators in the Android and iOS applications according to the following parameters:
- App Technical Performance — battery usage, stability, and rendering time, improving which leads to improving user experience, ratings, and installs.
- Ratings — users can rate their experience with your app on a scale of 0 to 5 to help others decide whether to install it.
- User churn — the percentage of customers that ceased using your company’s product or service during a specific period of time.
- DAU / MAU — the ratio of the number of daily active users (who open the app at least once a day) to the number of monthly active users (who open the app at least once every 28 days) compared to competitors.
- User Engagement — the metric shows the amount of time your app’s screen was in the foreground. If the program is running.
- User Retention — how often and how long users interact with the mobile app after their first visit.
- Percentage of new users returning daily.
- Lifetime Value (LTV) — for each new user, Analytics calculates the sum of purchase events during the first 120 days of the user’s use of the app. Lifetime Value (LTV) is the average value of this metric across all users.
- Pages and Screens — how mobile apps are performing in terms of screen views. Use it to learn what content is most interesting to your users.
- Events registered in the application — data about individual actions of users in the application, for example, about loading pages, clicking on links, or making a purchase.
- Application page conversions — how the user got to the application page.
Based on the analysis of the metrics of the mobile application, hypotheses were formed to change the sales funnel and some application flow to improve their efficiency. An analytics map was also formed, covering the full functionality of the application with events and metrics for the possibility of effective analysis and continuous improvement.
Software Transition Plan Demo + Conclusion
After conducting work on code audit, design, QA, documentation, and analytics, an extensive report on all problems and opportunities for their improvement was created. Calculations of error correction deadlines, required team composition, budget, and strategy for further development were all included. This is exactly what is presented in the demo.
Refactoring
Based on the scope of work and errors presented at the demo, a strategy was formed, and the code itself was refactored for the possibility of further quality development.
Completed Challenges
Devlight partially recovered the reputation of apps for the iOS and Android platforms among active users due to the ELDORADO app software transfer, and we were also able to block the removal of applications. With more useful analytic data at our disposal, we’ll continue working on the app’s ranks in 2023 while advancing our work with retailers, paid and organic advertising, and user reviews.
Our team’s work has resulted in improved performance indicators for applications on the iOS and Android platforms (via services like Firebase, Google Play Console, and App Store Connect). The iOS and Android apps are now available for download by new users. Additionally, Devlight constructed the Ecosystem for the iOS and Android platforms in a secure, efficient, and high-quality manner.
The ELDORADO apps were brought to the right functional state and stable continuous operation for end users, according to the overall assessment of the transition results. All significant UI issues were resolved by Devlight, which also corrected code base issues that precluded continued maintenance and scaling of application functionality. Additionally, a few of the mistakes that consumers made while using the system have been fixed within a reasonable amount of time. The engagement’s higher sales conversion of app users on the iOS and Android platforms was another observable outcome.
Future challenges
The project’s team had overcome every obstacle they met on this journey. Due to their significance and optimized API interaction, some tasks still necessitate the rebuilding of modules. The documentation for the backend side API will also continue to be updated. But generally speaking, despite the obstacles encountered, we accepted responsibility and made many practical contributions.
With more useful analytic data at our disposal, we’ll continue to work on the app’s ranks in 2023 while also advancing our work with retailers, paid and organic advertising, and user reviews. We also plan to catch up with the mobile app to the web in terms of functionality and create additional features for the apps as part of the development of the client’s ecosystem.
KEY FEATURES AND VALUE
Final design
Here are some of the final design screens that we want to share with you.
Customer feedbacks
I’m impressed with their technical and organizational skills. I appreciate that Devlight takes the time to consult with us and doesn’t just provide us with what we ask for. On top of this Devlight became a partner who delivered significant value not only in technical area but in implementation best practices, suggesting new features to develop true omnichannel exclusive customer experience.
ELDORADO BY THE NUMBERS
The client experienced significant improvements in their applications for iOS and Android platforms through our engagement. The transition resulted in the applications being brought to a correct working state, ensuring stable and continuous operation for end users.
