A shopping app like MAF Carrefour combines a large catalogue, delivery slots, loyalty and fast checkout. This guide covers the features, process and cost factors.
Using a mobile app for ordering anything you need is the new normal, and some apps have remarkable impressions on customers’ hearts. A big thanks to the mobile app development technology that has made almost all things available for purchase just a click away.
Shopping apps like MAF Carrefour are the top choice of many customers in the UAE for groceries, electronics, household products, kitchen appliances, gadgets, and more.
Developing a hyperlocal app like Carrefour is such an excitement, but there are some costs associated with it. While reading this blog, you will have a clear idea about it.
We have created this blog to answer your question: How much does it cost to develop an app like Carrefour?
What is an App like Carrefour?
Before understanding the concept of shopping apps like Carrefour, it would be best to know basic info about retail mobile apps. So, it is an application that works for web, mobile, and desktop platforms and facilitates users to order products from brick–and–mortar stores.
It can be grocery items, electronics, home décor, or anything else. These apps come with features like payment methods, delivery schedules, product search, an online catalogue and more.
Carrefour app is also known as MAF Carrefour (Android, iOS). It belongs to the Majid Al Futtaim Group, which introduced Carrefour ( Origin – France) to the UAE in 1995. MAF is a UAE-based company handling over 30 markets across the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.
Users can order products across 20 key categories, such as food, beverages, electronics, health & fitness, and more than expected using the MAF Carrefour app.
Source: Arka Softwares indicative pricing. Single platform, excluding VAT.
Some Interesting Facts related to Online Shopping Apps
Before we learn about the cost of developing an app like MAF Carrefour, here are some interesting facts we collected for you. It will give you insight that you can leverage for e-commerce app development for businesses.
- Gen-Z shoppers like to shop using social media, VR trials, and online live streaming.
- Almost all internet users, as consumers, prefer window shopping online.
All these stats are mentioned here to give you an insight that if you are looking to develop an app similar to Carrefour, then you must develop it as per the trends. It helps you to have long-term business benefits.
By creating a fusion of trends and on-demand app development for your online retail business, you can:
- Have high ROI, offering seamless omnichannel experiences.
- Grow loyalty and profits among new and existing customers.
- Have first-party data with ease to create business strategies.
Now it’s time to discuss the development costs of e-commerce apps like Carrefour.
Read more: How to Create a Property Search App Like Bayut?
Business Model of an App like MAF Carrefour
In order to develop an app like MAF Carrefour for business, it would be best to understand how its business takes place so that you can also apply or create your own business model based on it.
The MAF Carrefour offers the perfect shopping marketplace to its users, where its business model plays an important role.
A user can find and buy anything from food and groceries to home appliances. Based on the stats, Carrefour serves more than 20k customers daily, depicting its finest supply chain mechanism.
Let’s have a look at Carrefour Business Model Canvas!
- Customer Segment: Carrefour targets everyday consumers who are used to shopping for their household and personal needs. It offers a wide range of products covering target customers’ needs.
- Value Proposition: it prioritizes customers first and ensures a seamless shopping experience via online and physical stores. For strong customer relationships, it also offers loyalty programs, personalized discounts, and special promotions.
- Sales Channels: the company sells products via multiple channels, such as supermarkets, online stores, hypermarkets, and convenience stores.
- Revenue Streams: the main revenue stream is physical and online sales. The other way of revenue generation is selling advertising space.
- Resources & activities: its key resources are an extensive store network, diverse product offerings, supply chain relationships, and workforce. Regarding key activities, its dedicated teams handle product procurement, marketing, transportation, logistics, and store management.
- Tech Investment: the management invests in technology.
- to enhance the customer experience,
- Partnership: It partners with local farmers, suppliers, and manufacturers to ensure fine supply chain management.
Overall, the components mentioned above strengthen the business model of MAF Carrefour and make it one of the top brands in the retail sector.
How to Earn from an App Like MAF Carrefour?
It would be best to know about the revenue model to understand how to earn from an app like MAF Carrefour. The revenue model of Carrefour enables it to gain huge profits and revenue. So, here is how it happens:
- Delivery Charges: it charges a nominal delivery fee to the customers per order placement. Despite charging the delivery fee based on the order value, it charges based on the distance between the store location and the delivery address.
- Revenue Share: it shares 15% to 30% of revenue from the store registered at the Carrefour platform. The revenue share percentage depends on the maturity of the market segment in which a particular store is dealt.
So, it is all about the revenue model of an app like Carrefour that you can also adopt with your next online shopping app. Additionally, with your app like Carrefour, you can also earn via a vendor subscription fee that can be monthly or yearly.
Top Factors Affecting the Cost of Developing a Shopping App Like MAF Carrefour
Determining the cost of developing a shopping app is only practical with requirement analysis. So, first, it would be best to know what the cost-affecting factors are. Let’s make it simple.
The key cost-affecting factors are:
- App Features
- Platform (Android/iOS/Web/cross-platform)
- Design, including UI/UX
- Design and Development Complexity
- App Size
- Developers and Their Location
- App Hosting
- API Integrations
- Security
- Maintenance
And there may be more based on your next e-commerce shopping app. These factors contribute to the overall cost of developing the app.
Let’s discuss this one by one.
#1. App Features
Features directly influence the customer experience and work like more innovative features—an enhanced customer experience. Usually, every online shopping app has key features like:
- Login/signup
- Online catalog
- Search products
- Shopping Cart
- Checkout
- Payments
- Order Tracking
- Product Browsing and more.
All these features are necessary, so to develop these, there is a cost. If features are more complex, then the cost increases accordingly. Remember that the cost of developing features affects the cost of developing apps like Carrefour a lot. It can range from a small share of the budget to a large one, depending on feature complexity.
#2. Platform
Mobile app development cost also depend on the platform you choose, such as iOS, Android, or Web. Suppose you want to develop an online shopping app like MAF Carrefour for the Android platform; its cost follows our basic to medium bands, $9,000 to $24,000 depending on scope. For other platforms, it will be like this:
- Ecommerce app development cost for iOS: within the same bands.
- Ecommerce app development cost for cross-platform: usually lower than two native apps.
- Ecommerce app development cost for web: quoted separately by scope.
Although you can go for native e-commerce app development, if you want to target all platforms with a single app, then cross-platform e-commerce development is the best.
#3. App Designing
An end user does not want to know what coding you have used to develop the app; they only want to access it for their purpose. So, it must offer them a seamless interface (UI), and its design must be catchy. Here, you want to develop an app that a user can access for online shopping.
Its design must be accordingly. In simple words, an app design creates a first impression, and your app must have it. The cost to design the app depends on its level, i.e., basic to advanced. So, design is a meaningful share of the cost and grows with complexity.
#4. App Complexity
Cost to develop an app like MAF Carrefour is significantly influenced by its complexity, and several factors play a role in determining it. More advanced features increase complexity.
Additionally, the target audience, whether local or global, affects complexity, with global apps requiring more resources. Using third-party APIs and libraries can extend functionality but also add complexity.
Complex algorithms and the utilization of device hardware further elevate development costs. In essence, app complexity is a critical factor in app development cost.
#5. App Size
Features, functionalities, and how many target audiences will use the app decide the app’s size and the cost also. The larger the size of the app the more the cost.
Suppose you want to develop an enterprise-level level online shopping app then it will sit in our advanced band, $24,000 or more. A small business app sits in the basic band ($9,000 to $12,000) and a medium-scale business app in the medium band ($15,000 to $24,000)
#6. Developers Location
Don’t forget that hiring costs are also associated with app development costs, so they will increase or decrease based on the developers’ location.
Suppose you are looking for app developers in the USA, then the average hourly cost is $150-$200, or you want to hire app developers in Europe, which may cost you $100-$120 or more.
But if you want to hire app developers in UAE, you can hire them at a nominal cost, which is $25 onwards. The rest of the things depend on app requirements.
Another way is to hire an e-commerce app development company in Dubai where you can have all your resources in one place with cost-effectiveness.
#7. App Hosting
The app hosting is directly related to the server expenses. You need a server to host your app on the internet. Without hosting, it will not work, as every app in this world is hosted on servers located globally.
The factors that decide the cost to host the app on a server depend on multiple factors such as Hosting Provider, Server Resources, Scalability, Data Storage, Bandwidth Usage, Geographical Location, License, SSL Certificate, and Maintenance. The average cost to host the app lies between $70 to $320 per month.
#8. API Integrations
You can integrate some APIs at no cost, but some APIs come with the cost. APIs help extend the functionality of an app.
However, if you want to integrate a paid API, then it can increase the cost of app development to develop a shopping app like MAF Carrefour. An average API integration cost is $500–$3,000.
#9. Security
A secure app ensures the users’ and data’s security, which can be done by using a robust security mechanism. However, the server you are using to host the app will take care of it.
But if you want to use extraordinary security mechanisms for data and transactions, that will influence the over-app development cost.
#10. Maintenance
For seamless execution of the app, regular maintenance is required. As per the industry standard, it will cost you 15%–20% of the overall app development cost. But be confident about it, as it is beneficial for the app and provides the best user experience for the users.
Source: Arka Softwares guidance for maintenance after launch.
Wrapping It Up!
Now, you are aware of factors that affect the cost of developing a shopping app like MAF Carrefour. The point is whatever your idea and requirement, both are critically responsible for the overall development cost as these factors influence the others.
Suppose you need an online shopping app for a large-scale business; then its complexity will be high, require large team size, API integrations, and more, and will increase the cost. So, it is like-
- Simple app development cost: $9,000-$12,000
- Mid-complex app development cost: $15,000-$24,000
- Advanced app development cost: $24,000 or more
It is just an estimation, as the rest depends on your requirements, which you can confirm with any top mobile app development company in Dubai. They will tell you in detail after the requirements analysis.
Being an on-demand app development company in Dubai, we help UAE businesses and entrepreneurs with our app development expertise regarding their challenges.
Our expertise includes e-commerce app development, real estate app development, and more. So, if you have a query for us, we would be happy to answer your query.
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