Full-featured e-commerce app with 120K+ downloads.
A retail brand needed a mobile-first shopping experience that matched their web platform. We built a React Native app with offline catalog browsing, real-time inventory sync, and native payment integration that hit 120K downloads in 6 months.
The short version.
A mid-size retail brand with a strong web presence saw 65% of their traffic coming from mobile browsers, but mobile conversion rates were 3× lower than desktop. Their responsive website wasn’t cutting it: slow load times, clunky checkout, and no push notification capability meant they were leaving money on the table.
We built a React Native e-commerce app through our mobile app development practice for iOS and Android with offline catalog browsing, real-time inventory sync, native Apple Pay and Google Pay integration, and personalized push notifications. Average order value on the app is 35% higher than web, and the 4.8-star rating drives organic downloads.
Mobile traffic, desktop conversion.
The numbers told a clear story: most customers browsed on mobile but bought on desktop. The responsive website couldn’t deliver the native experience mobile shoppers expected:
- 3× conversion gap: mobile conversion at 0.8% vs desktop at 2.4%; millions in lost revenue
- Slow mobile experience: responsive site loaded in 4.5s on mobile; every second above 3s loses 7% of conversions
- No push notifications: couldn’t notify customers about flash sales, back-in-stock alerts, or abandoned carts
- Checkout friction: mobile web checkout required manual address and card entry; 78% cart abandonment rate
- No offline browsing: customers in areas with spotty connectivity (transit, stores) couldn’t browse the catalog
A native app was the answer, but building separate iOS and Android apps would double the cost and timeline. They needed a cross-platform solution that still felt native.
React Native with native payment and offline catalog.
We chose React Native for 90% code sharing between platforms while using native modules where performance matters most (payments, animations, and image loading):
- Offline-first catalog: product data and images cached locally; full browsing capability without connectivity
- Native payments: Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Stripe integration; one-tap checkout reduced friction dramatically
- Real-time inventory: WebSocket connection to inventory system; stock levels update live, preventing overselling
- Smart push notifications: personalized alerts for abandoned carts, price drops, back-in-stock, and flash sales
- Image optimization: progressive loading with blur placeholders; CDN-served responsive images based on device resolution
- Deep linking: marketing campaigns and email links open directly to products in the app
Shared codebase with native performance.
The app shares 90% of its code between iOS and Android, with native modules for payments and camera (barcode scanning). The backend syncs with the existing e-commerce platform via API.
Cross-platform | 90% code sharing, native where it matters
The offline catalog uses a delta-sync strategy: only changed products are downloaded, keeping the local database fresh while minimizing bandwidth. On a typical sync, less than 50KB of data transfers even for a 5,000+ product catalog.
“The app converted our mobile browsers into mobile buyers. Average order value is 35% higher than web because the experience is so much smoother. The abandoned cart notifications alone paid for the entire project in the first quarter.”
Head of E-commerce, Retail brand
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