How to Develop an eCommerce App in Dubai?

The UAE is a tech-driven country where shopping from eCommerce sites has become a way of life since it gives access to a wide range of affordable products. Here, if you invest and develop an eCommerce app, it comes as a golden opportunity for the online business to thrive.

eCommerce has gained huge popularity today, and more businesses in the UAE are entering this lucrative sector with futuristic apps.

Do you also want to build an eCommerce app to attract the tech-savvy population and bring digital transformation in the UAE? You should know that you are on the right track.

But do you know how to build an eCommerce app? If you’re new to knowing about it or still figuring it out, this article will surely help you.

This article will guide you through everything you need to know about eCommerce app development.

So, let’s get started.

What is an eCommerce Mobile App?

With the rise of internet usage, a large number of people started shifting to online shopping. During this time, eCommerce websites get a lot of attention since they allow customers to access a variety of products in the same place and make smooth transactions.

As time passed, smartphone usage increased, and people started to depend on mobile apps for various purposes. Mobile applications bring an excellent opportunity for businesses to reach their online website to a wider audience with a robust eCommerce mobile app.

So, eCommerce apps are similar to eCommerce websites, but the app makes products accessible to a wider audience. Thus, an eCommerce app allows users to effortlessly buy and sell a variety of products online and expand their business.

Today, an eCommerce app comes with excellent entrepreneurial scope by selling a wide variety of products through a virtual storefront. These apps come with numerous functionalities and features that are beyond just “add to cart”. eCommerce app makes it easy for customers to complete their purchase with an easy in-app payment option in just a few simple clicks.

Moreover, such apps offer the advantage of shopping from anywhere and at any hour just from their smartphone and get their products delivered to their doorstep.

Looking into the scope of success, many businesses today have started to develop an eCommerce app in Dubai with smart functionalities.

Overview of the eCommerce App Market in UAE

Before delving into more about the eCommerce mobile app in Dubai, let’s understand its market strength. When you understand where the UAE eCommerce market stands, you can take eCommerce app development more seriously.

We are in the year 2025, and it is expected that the user base of the eCommerce mobile apps in the UAE will be 49.65% this year. By 2029, it is expected that the same user base will hit 58.0%.

Revenue for the UAE market is projected to reach US$8.00 billion in 2025 and US$10.11 billion by 2029 at a CAGR of 6.02%.

By 2029, the expected number of users in the eCommerce market will be 5.7 million. It is expected that the average revenue per user (ARPU) will be $1.7 thousand.

It is projected that the eCommerce market size of the UAE will be $12.28 billion in 2025, which is expected to reach $21.18 billion by 2030. So, the size will increase at a CAGR of 11.52% between the years 2025 and 2030.

The eCommerce market of the UAE is expected to earn a revenue of $8 billion in the year 2025. By 2029, it is expected that the eCommerce market of the UAE will earn a revenue of $10.11 billion. The revenue rate of the UAE eCommerce will grow at a CAGR of 6.02% between 2025 to 2029.

Reasons to Invest in an eCommerce App in Dubai

If you are thinking, Why should you invest in building an eCommerce app in Dubai, we have tried to answer your doubt. Firstly, the rise of smartphones and internet usage among the tech-savvy population of Dubai is the prime reason eCommerce apps are thriving in the future.

There are more such reasons that you should know if you want to see your business thrive in the competition. Looking closely at the reasons for investing in an eCommerce app that we have listed below will help you to understand better.

♦ High Internet Penetration

The UAE recorded the highest internet penetration globally, and Dubai has the largest population to access the internet in the country. As per the report of Statista, 99% of the population in the UAE has access to the internet, and 95% of them use smartphones.

This indicates that people demand a mobile-first solution in every sector to lead an easier life. Thus, if businesses build an eCommerce app in Dubai, it will be an excellent investment opportunity that will bring significant growth.

♦ Robust Logistics Ecosystem & Infrastructure

Everyone knows the fact that the UAE has a world-class network of logistics and infrastructure. The country invests a huge amount in its logistics and infrastructure so that customers all around the world can enjoy faster delivery.

This enables global businesses to connect and deal with multiple businesses in the UAE. Thus, the robust logistics ecosystem and infrastructure in the UAE make a good investment ground for businesses to create an eCommerce app in Dubai.

♦ Support from Government Policies

The government of the UAE aims to bring digital transformation across the country and is supporting smart technological solutions to achieve it. It also supports the vision of growing the eCommerce sector by launching initiatives like Dubai CommerCity.

This initiative of the UAE government encourages businesses to make an eCommerce app in Dubai and scale up their growth. The favorability of the UAE government helps in the growth of eCommerce platforms and makes online shopping more convenient.

♦ Escalated Consumer Demand

With digital advancement, a large number of tech-savvy populations are dependent upon apps, and there is demand for mobile-first online shopping apps. This has brought significant growth in the eCommerce business of the UAE, and with an eCommerce app, it has witnessed a boom.

Moreover, the demand has increased competition in eCommerce, and to stand out, investing in the idea to develop an eCommerce app is an excellent step.

Features to Include While Building an eCommerce App in Dubai

If you are convinced to make a profitable investment in to make an eCommerce application, you must know about the features that can be considered.

You can also hire a mobile app development company in Dubai to build an eCommerce mobile app professionally. These expert professionals will give importance to some of the key features, we have listed below.

Let’s check them out.

1] Onboarding and Setup

The first feature that you must keep in mind while you develop an eCommerce app is that you must have a smooth onboarding process. You must be capable of connecting with the social media platforms to make it easy for users to sign in to the app.

Additionally, your eCommerce app must support signing up with an email address, phone number, and password. After signing in, users must be able to smoothly set up their account with relatable information.

2] Explore Products

Users can seamlessly explore different products in your eCommerce app. It must have an easy search feature, as per the product category, to avoid confusion. This feature will help to find only the product that they need by looking at the vast list of products that they don’t need.

3] Order and Checkout Process

Your eCommerce app should offer users to follow a seamless order placement process. A landing page where they can add the desired products, then choose the address and preferred payment option to proceed. Lastly, they can easily check out by clicking the “order” button.

4] Order Tracking and Notification

Then come the features that can make it easy for users to wait for their order. The order tracking feature must be there in your eCommerce app.

Additionally, your eCommerce app must be capable of sending notifications to give a real-time update of the order. This feature will surely improve the user experience.

5] Smooth Payment Process

Must integrate a seamless payment system into eCommerce that will give freedom to the users to choose their preferred payment method.

To provide a secure and fast in-app transaction, integrate a payment gateway into the eCommerce website. This will help businesses to build trust with their customers and better user experience.

Types of eCommerce Apps You Can Develop

eCommerce has a wider scope that brings a diverse choice of eCommerce apps for businesses. Choosing the right type is very important so that it aligns with the customer’s needs and helps your eCommerce business to grow.

We have listed out the types of eCommerce apps you must know to develop the right platform for your business to grow.

► B2B or Business-to-Business Apps

The first type of eCommerce app is the B2B, which wholly caters to channel transactions between one business to another business.

This type of eCommerce app allows businesses to buy from one business and sell to another business. It comes up with a wholesale price feature, can take bulk orders, and integrates with business software like CRM.

► B2C or Business-to-Customer Apps

For businesses that want to connect with end users globally to sell their products, B2C eCommerce apps are best. Such apps offer tailored products to the customers, which is different from B2B.

B2C eCommerce apps give priority to the choice of their customers and offer them a shopping experience with streamlined checkout, personalized recommendations, and integration with B2C market tools.

► eCommerce Retail Apps

eCommerce retail apps are like an online marketplace that offers vendors from all over the world to sell their products under the same virtual roof. By entering this app, customers can find multiple brands and shop from them.

These eCommerce apps offer customers access to a wide variety of products from fashion to electronics and more. Can access exclusive discounts, loyalty programs, and other special offers.

It offers a secure and fact payment gateway for smooth checkout, rating & reviews, and offers a unified user experience.

► C2C or Customer-to-Customer Apps

Lastly comes the C2C eCommerce apps, which let two private individuals make a deal. Such apps allow two customers to buy and sell without the intervention of any third party.

These apps offer more convenience, bridging the gap between buyers and sellers. One can promote user-driven content on such apps, have a payment system, a responsive interface, and more.

Top Examples of Successful eCommerce Apps in Dubai

Dubai is the center stage for eCommerce platforms, where it is growing tremendously and making shopping easier for individuals. We will see what the eCommerce hub has for us.

Let’s explore the top eCommerce apps available in Dubai.

• Noon

Noon is one of the most famous and fastest-growing eCommerce platforms in the UAE, established upon the initial investment of $1 billion.

Customers will find a wide choice of products, starting from electronics, fashion, beauty, baby products, and more. The eCommerce platform accounts for 8 million products and 450,000 deals, making it the leader in the UAE.

• Mumzworld

Mumzworld is the largest eCommerce shopping site in the UAE, which has exclusive offerings for mothers, babies, and children. This eCommerce app offers shipping facilities to more than 20 countries and serves more than 3.5 million mothers in the UAE and North Africa.

The app features more than 350,000 products, among which 6.500 + brands are local, offering a wide range of products from maternity wear to baby food.

• Namshi

Namshi is the name known to be the number one eCommerce platform that caters to fashion in the whole UAE. It maintains a wide customer base with an extensive collection, including apparel, footwear, beauty products, fashion accessories, and fragrances.

The eCommerce site features more than 1300 local brands and is a hub for a wide range of products for its valuable customers.

• Jumbo

Jumbo is an OmniChannel Retailer in the UAE that started from a traditional brick-and-mortar store. Customers can find a vast collection of electronic products in this eCommerce store, starting from mobile phones to gaming gear and telecom services, etc.

The best thing that makes Jumbo stand out in the UAE is its customer-friendly policies. It offers a one-stop check feature of their products, flexible product collection, and can deliver products within 30 minutes, and even offers express delivery.

• Ounass

Ounass is the leading eCommerce platform for luxury and style in the UAE that offers an extensive range of products from local and international designers. This is the first luxury eCommerce site launched by AI Tayer Group, a leading business group of the UAE.

This platform is home to high-end fashion brands from around the world operating in the UAE. The swift and efficient delivery feature of Ounass makes it stand out from the competition, and it offers a wide range of products.

Steps to Create an eCommerce App in Dubai

An eCommerce app development company in Dubai will follow a proper itinerary of eCommerce app development. This will include the steps from planning to launch of the eCommerce app and also post-maintenance.

Let’s take a closer look at all the steps to develop an eCommerce app.

Step 1: Proper Market Research

Before you step into developing an eCommerce app, it is crucial to do thorough market research. This is a clever strategy to know the needs of the customers, what’s trending in the market, and analyze the competitors.

You will get to know what the competitors are lacking, which can be covered by your app, and also the strength to introduce something more powerful. This analysis will make it easy to meet the market and user demands.

Step 2: Set the Goal

Now that you have done the market research, it will help you to set clearer goals for your eCommerce app development process. Proceeding with a clear objective will help build a more effective eCommerce app.

You can choose better functionalities and features for your app that will align with your business growth. You can prioritize the features that stand out from the competitors and make more informed adjustments to your app.

This will increase sales of your business, earn better revenue, and boost user experience.

Step 3: Choose an Ideal Platform

The next step is to choose an ideal platform for your eCommerce app, which helps it perform better and succeed in the market. When you know the best platform for your e-commerce, it will establish scalability, functionality, and a better user experience.

The choice of the platform is highly influenced by the size, technical requirements, and budget of the business. The prime thing is that the choice of platform will decide how well your eCommerce app will integrate with other platforms.

Step 4: Determine Feature List

The choice of feature list is very crucial because that is what makes your eCommerce the best and can even set it apart. You need to carefully choose a set of features for your eCommerce apps that can boost user experience.

Your eCommerce app must have smart features like AI integration, AR/VR, a payment gateway, and others that offer easy navigation. You must be able to send push notifications to the users, must have a review & ratings feature, and businesses should access analytics to improve app performance.

Step 5: Tech Stack

It is utmost crucial to choose the right tech stack because the performance, security, and scalability are hugely dependent on that. To develop an eCommerce platform that offers a seamless experience to users, you need to be attentive about both front-end and back-end technologies.

The popular front-end technologies that can be chosen are React or Angular, and the popular back-end technologies include Node.js or Python.

For impactful data management of the eCommerce app, you can choose MongoDB and PostgreSQL. At the end, remember that for the long-term success of your app, you must choose a tech stack that aligns best with its requirements.

Step 6: The UI/UX Design

If you want to develop an eCommerce app that has a user-friendly interface that drives high user engagement, its UI/UX design is a crucial element. The design of the eCommerce app can establish an excellent first impression or can totally fail to impress the users.

To design your eCommerce app, start with the wireframe before moving to other things. Next is to create a prototype of the app’s design, giving importance to creating a simple and intuitive design.

It plays an important role in attracting more users, establishing customer satisfaction, retaining customers, and boosting the conversion rate.

Step 7: Develop and Test the App

After the design next comes the development step of the eCommerce app, which gives life to the whole idea of the app. Here, the developer will transform the whole design and idea of the app into functionality.

This is a collaborative effort of a skilled and experienced team of mobile app developers who specialize in eCommerce app development. While developing the app, developers will use the required tech stack that was already mentioned above.

After development comes the testing that helps to recognize any bugs and issues in the app before deployment. Testing is important because developers get the time to ensure the optimum performance of the app.

Step 8: Launch and Management

Now, it’s time to launch the app on different app stores like Google Play and the App Store so that it reaches people for their use. Before the launch, you must market it on different platforms to create buzz and attract users.

Keep the app in check to improve performance and fix bugs with every update. The app must be compatible with the latest version of security patches and the operating system to keep it relevant and safe from emerging threats.

Cost to Develop an eCommerce App in Dubai

So, you now know the process a mobile app startup in Dubai follows to develop eCommerce apps. However, do you know how much it will cost you? Here, we will give you an overview of the eCommerce app development cost.

The eCommerce mobile app development cost in the UAE typically ranges from $30,000 to $200,000. Various factors decide the final cost of the app development, which include features to be integrated, complexity of the technology, use of the iOS and Android platforms, UI/UX design, and others.

If you are planning to develop an eCommerce app that has basic functionality and features, then it will cost you up to $30,000.

On the other hand, if you desire to develop a full-stack eCommerce with advanced features like AI, AR/VR, latest technology, and a more complex design, then that will exceed the maximum amount of $200,000. So, it is best to plan the budget to develop an eCommerce app and decide on its features.

Payment Gateways You Can Integrate into Your eCommerce App

Your eCommerce app should offer secure and seamless payment options to the buyers for optimum customer satisfaction. By integrating a payment gateway into your eCommerce, you can achieve it.

We have listed some of the best payment gateways that can be easily integrated into your eCommerce to ensure customers have smooth transactions.

Here is the list of payment gateways for eCommerce websites and apps in Dubai.

1) Telr

Telr is one of the favorable payment gateways in the UAE to be integrated by businesses in their eCommerce sites and apps. It offers different payment options to customers, from online payment to cash on delivery, and is suitable for businesses of all sizes.

Telr is established in more than 120 countries and is rapidly growing in the UAE, becoming the best option for local businesses.

2) PayTabs

PayTabs is one of the famous payment gateways in the UAE, which offers an efficient payment process and an AI-powered fraud detection system. It is an ideal choice for businesses because it lets them deal internationally. It comes with simple and transparent packages: starter, growth, and enterprise packs.

The payment method of this gateway is available across all channels. PayTabs allows buyers to make payments 24/7 from the eCommerce site and apps.

3) Checkout.com

Checkout.com is the payment gateway for the eCommerce apps that allow users to make international payments seamlessly. This payment gateway has received unmatched popularity in the UAE because of its secure integration and seamless setup.

It offers a customizable solution to meet the different needs of the market. Moreover, it offers businesses valuable insight that can be used to update as per the needs.

4) Stripe

Stripe is one of the powerful and smooth payment gateways for eCommerce businesses in the UAE. It allows businesses to receive and transfer payments to anyone in the world.

The services of Stripe are open to eCommerce stores, marketplaces, and subscription services for everyone. It also offers protection from any kind of transactional fraud, helps businesses to send invoices, manage their finances, and more.

5) CCAvenue

CCAvenue is a feature-rich and trustworthy payment gateway option in the UAE. Businesses can offer safe and smooth online transactions in the eCommerce apps and sites to their customers. It’s a preferred payment gateway for businesses of all sizes because it offers 24/7 assistance.

The best thing about this gateway system is that it doesn’t charge anything for the setup and offers flexible maintenance as per the client’s preference.

How to Make Money by Building an eCommerce App in Dubai?

Well, you created a feature-rich eCommerce app and deployed it for the use of your customers. But the next thing is that you must create a self-sustaining revenue stream from the app.

It can be challenging, which is why we have listed some strategies that can be used to monetize your mobile app.

➢ In-App Purchase

One of the prime revenue strategies for your eCommerce app is offering your users in-app purchases.

Give your customers multiple payment options to purchase products from your app. You can also offer special discounts and coupons when making a payment while checking out.

➢ Freemium Plan

If you are selling products along with services, offering freemium plans can be an effective monetization method.

Allow users to access the app for free initially and offer features like customization, premium listings, one-day delivery, and others on a purchasing plan. This way, you can earn money by offering an optimum user experience.

➢ Subscription Model

eCommerce apps offer their customers different subscription plans depending on the type of customer. On purchasing plans, it gives customers the ability to enjoy many advantages that normal customers can’t get.

Early access to promotion & sales, free shipping, early delivery, and other high-priority services.

➢ Sponsored Ads

eCommerce apps can show advertisements of other brands on their platform, which allows them to earn passive income.

In exchange for promoting the brand on the eCommerce apps business can charge a minimum amount, which is sponsored ads. Running such sponsored ads is a good way to promote local businesses and help them grow.

Why Choose Nimble AppGenie to Develop Your Feature-Rich eCommerce App?

Do you have mobile app ideas that will strengthen the success of your eCommerce business? Excellent, you just need to discuss it with our team of talented and experienced developers, and boom, it will be ready to thrive.

Nimble AppGenie is the ultimate answer to the question of how to develop a mobile app in Dubai. It caters to a wide range of industries and skillfully develops winning apps for businesses in the UAE.

Are you looking for good app development in the UAE for your app? Well, your well-functioning and feature-rich app is just one consultation away with us.

Conclusion

The competition among the eCommerce businesses is increasing. In such a situation, you must have an action plan to scale up your brand. So, when you develop an eCommerce app, your business will reach a wider audience, spread brand awareness, and revolutionize your revenue growth.

You know everything about eCommerce app development, its market size, explore its types, and others. You have also mastered the main thing, which is the steps to develop an eCommerce app.

Now is the time to invest your learning in building a futuristic eCommerce app that takes your business to new heights.

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