Investing in an e-commerce website or application: the complete guide

Selling online is more than putting photos on a page. An online shop is an up-to-date catalogue, a smooth buying journey, a payment method suited to the country, reliable delivery and a team that processes orders every day. The website or the app is only its shop window.

Should you invest in a website, a mobile app, or both? It all depends on what you sell, who your customers are and how often they buy. This guide details what each channel does best, the features to plan and a phased approach.

01What you sell, and to whom

The same screens do not suit a cosmetics brand and an equipment wholesaler. Start by describing your customers:

• The individual customer: they compare and buy from time to time. They expect a fast journey and clear information on price and delivery.
• The business customer or reseller: they order often and in quantity, sometimes on negotiated terms. They want to reorder their usual products in a few taps.
• The loyal customer: they come back regularly, and well-timed offers and reminders are what keep them.
• The internal team: sales staff, pickers and customer service, who need reliable tools to process orders.

02What an e-commerce website does best

The website is the front door. A customer who does not know you will not download an app: they search for a product and land on a page. It is the tool for discovery and the first order.

Search engines find it if each product page is well structured; the article on SEO in Algeria covers this point. It can be shared with a simple link and lets people order from any browser, without installing anything.

03What a mobile app does best

The app takes over once the relationship exists. It serves customers who order often: an open account, saved addresses and usual products, an order in a few taps. Notifications bring them back at the right moment, and a loyalty scheme fits naturally there.

Codex, for example, designed the LEVVA GYM app, with an integrated shop, collections and product highlights, and the Valuetherm app, which brings together a product catalogue, promotions and mobile ordering for customers and resellers.

04The essential features of a shop

1. 01
   Catalogue. Clear categories and products with their variants: size, colour, pack size.
2. 02
   Search and filters. By name, then by price, brand or feature. A search that finds nothing loses a sale.
3. 03
   Product page. Sharp photos, a useful description, price, availability and delivery time, visible before anything goes into the cart.
4. 04
   Cart. Editable quantities, total and delivery fee displayed, and the cart kept if the customer comes back later.
5. 05
   Checkout. Address, delivery, payment, confirmation. Every unnecessary step costs orders.
6. 06
   Order tracking. Confirmed, prepared, shipped, delivered: the customer gets a message at each change.
7. 07
   Customer accounts. History, saved addresses and repeat orders, without forcing an account for a first purchase.
8. 08
   Promotions. Discount codes, crossed-out prices and targeted offers, with start and end dates.

05Payments: adapting to the country

Payment is decided before the checkout is designed. In Algeria, cash on delivery remains very common: the customer pays the courier on receipt. Online payment by CIB or Edahabia card goes through an approved payment provider, with which the merchant signs a contract.

Elsewhere, it usually goes through an approved local payment provider. In every case, the shop does not store card data: the provider takes the payment and sends back a confirmation. Cash on delivery, for its part, calls for rigorous tracking of collections.

06Delivery and logistics

Decide early whether you deliver yourself or with one or more delivery companies, then plan:

• the zones served and the fee for each zone;
• sending orders to the carrier and getting tracking numbers back;
• handling refused or returned parcels, and putting items back in stock;
• reconciling the courier’s collections with the orders delivered.

As volumes grow, logistics becomes software in its own right: the guide on logistics applications details its building blocks.

07The back office, the heart of the shop

The customer sees the shop window; your team lives in the back office, which brings together:

• orders, filtered by status, date, zone or payment method;
• stock by product and by variant, with out-of-stock alerts;
• a record for each customer and their purchase history;
• the catalogue, prices and promotions, editable without a developer;
• sales statistics readable without exporting files.

Codex built this kind of tool for AZ fulfillment, an e-commerce management platform that brings orders, stock and statistics together in one dashboard.

08Investing in phases: the website first, the app next

For most shops, the starting point is a solid website, well optimised for search engines, with a complete back office. It brings in new customers and puts the catalogue, prices and logistics to the test.

The app comes when repeat orders justify it: customers who come back, resellers who order every week, a loyalty offer to keep alive. It then connects to the same back office, without rebuilding anything. A frequent exception: a reseller network that is already loyal can start directly with the app.

09Mistakes to avoid

• launching an app before you have customers who come back;
• designing the checkout before choosing payment and delivery;
• rushing product pages, which customers and search engines alike ignore;
• processing orders in separate files, for lack of a back office;
• publishing the website or the app on accounts that are not in your name.

10What changes the budget

The cost depends on the scope, not on a standard rate. The main factors:

• the size of the catalogue and the number of variants;
• the payment methods and the integration with the provider;
• the link with delivery companies or an existing management tool;
• the target channels: website only, website and app, Android and iOS;
• the number of languages and the level of statistics expected.

Codex sends a detailed quote after the scoping workshop. To understand price differences, read how much a website costs in Algeria.

11The steps with Codex

1. 01
   Discovery. A workshop on your offer, your customers, your payments and your logistics. You leave with a clear scope, a schedule and a detailed quote.
2. 02
   Design. The buying journey, product pages, back-office screens and technical architecture. You approve every screen before development.
3. 03
   Development. Short sprints with a demo at each step, and tests on sensitive cases: interrupted payment, out-of-stock items, cancelled orders.
4. 04
   Launch and support. Go-live on a domain and accounts in your name, training for your team on the back office, then maintenance and new features.

Read next: how to create a multi-vendor marketplace and websites worth investing in.

12Building it with Codex

Codex is a software studio founded in Algiers in 2014. More than 15 engineers and designers build products in French, Arabic and English, and the team has built more than 20 products in-house. The source code, the accounts and the data stay in your name. See the published projects and the certificates of completion.

No office is added locally. The work starts from Algiers (Cité 440 Logements, Ain Malha, Djasr Kasentina), Doha (Building No. 157, Street No. 301, Zone 69, PO Box 8388) and Marseille (Rue de la République, 13002).