<p>Mobile applications are ubiquitous today - we use them for communication, shopping, to-do lists and entertainment. It seems obvious that the big e-commerce players have their own application. At the Upterdam 2024 conference, we will also discuss whether investing in a mobile application for e-shops is really beneficial, or whether it is just a passing trend. The answers to the following questions will help you to find out whether the development of an application is really necessary for your business.</p><h2>Do you really need a mobile app or is it FOMO?</h2><p>Start by analyzing your industry. How many of your competitors already have their own mobile app? If the answer is "more than a third" and you don't already have one, you may feel like you should act now to keep up. This feeling, known as FOMO (fear of missing out), can lead to hasty decisions. Therefore, it is important to think about whether the development of the application really solves a problem, or whether it is just a reaction to market pressure.</p><h2>What problem do you need to solve?</h2><p><img src="https://goodrequest-web.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/U_Pterdam_blog_posts_problems_1_clanok_6e8f464617.png" alt="UPterdam blog posts - problems, 1_ clanok.png"></p><p>Think about the biggest challenges your e-shop faces. Are you worried about high customer support costs? Are you noticing a high number of abandoned carts? Or are customers constantly asking for improvements to your services? If similar problems are repeated, a mobile application can be the solution that will increase your efficiency and improve the quality of the customer experience. However, before you start developing, investigate whether there are other, less expensive ways to solve these problems.</p><h2>Can you solve the problem without the app?</h2><p>This is the key question you should answer. Sometimes it is enough to improve an existing website and optimize it for mobile devices.</p><blockquote><p>However, if you want to offer customers advanced features that a regular website can't handle, such as augmented reality to visualize products like in the IKEA app, a mobile app can be a must.</p></blockquote><h2>What return on investment do you expect?</h2><p><img src="https://goodrequest-web.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/U_Pterdam_blog_posts_problems_1_d80d59e468.png" alt="UPterdam blog posts - problems, 1.png"></p><p>Mobile app development is a long-term investment that requires careful consideration. However, it can bring you significant profits if properly designed and implemented. Companies like Notino show that a mobile app can be a significant part of the turnover. Their app accounts for up to 30% of annual turnover and brings higher customer retention and lifetime value compared to the web.</p><h2>How does the application save costs?</h2><p>Mobile apps can reduce customer support and marketing costs. Thanks to the application, you can get more direct visits and reduce dependence on PPC campaigns. At Notina, they noticed that app users had significantly higher engagement and conversion rates than web users, allowing them to optimize customer acquisition costs.</p><h2>Sustainability and development of the application</h2><p><img src="https://goodrequest-web.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/Product_brief_Digital_product_lifecycle_png_d61e3b030e.png" alt="Product brief - Digital product lifecycle.png.png"></p><p>Application development does not end with its launch. You'll need a long-term plan to maintain it, update it, and develop it based on user feedback. Cooperation with a high-quality digital agency will help you not only with the development itself, but also with the constant improvement of the application so that it reflects the current needs and demands of customers.</p><h2>Marketing and communication</h2><p>Even the best app needs marketing. To acquire and retain users, you need to promote the app effectively. This includes not only traditional channels such as social networks and PPC campaigns, but also special offers, partnerships or optimization for the app store. It's important to have a separate marketing budget for your app and a well-thought-out strategy to ensure that as many potential customers as possible find out about your app.</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><script async="" src="https://tally.so/widgets/embed.js"></script>

<script>
window.TallyConfig = {
  "formId": "mDDGpZ",
  "popup": {
    "emoji": {
      "text": "👋",
      "animation": "wave"
    },
    "open": {
      "trigger": "scroll",
      "scrollPercent": 40
    }
  }
};
</script></div>

<h2>Conclusion: Is a mobile application the right choice for your e-shop?</h2><p>A mobile application can be of great benefit to your e-shop if it is designed and developed with specific customer needs and business goals in mind. If you're not sure where to start, it's important to have a clear strategy to help you identify whether investing in an app is really the right move for your business. At the Upterdam conference, you will have the opportunity to discuss these questions with experts and be inspired by practical examples that will help you make the right decision for the future of your e-commerce business.</p>

<h3>Take the survey!</h3><p>Do you want to better understand your customers' preferences and take your e-commerce business to the next level? Fill out our questionnaire and consult the results directly at Upterdam 2024. 👇</p>

Odpoveď nie je taká jednoduchá… Mobilné aplikácie sú čoraz populárnejším nástrojom na zvyšovanie predajov a lojality zákazníkov, no skutočne sú pre váš biznis nevyhnutné? Zodpovedzte si tieto kľúčové otázky pred začatím projektu.

Je mobilná aplikácia pre váš e-shop potrebná?

prvý článok_large.png

prvý článok.png

Adam Rakús

The answer is not so simple... Mobile apps are an increasingly popular tool for increasing sales and customer loyalty, but are they really essential for your business? Answer these key questions before starting the project.

Is a mobile app necessary for your e-shop?

<h3>TypeScript</h3><p>TypeScript has become an indispensable part of our toolbox, and we can no longer imagine working without it. It helps us catch errors early, maintain a more robust codebase, and scale our projects more efficiently. Additionally, it streamlines communication between our frontend and backend applications.</p><h3>React</h3><p>React has become so popular and widely used that we can safely say it has effectively become a de facto standard in frontend web development. This is one of the key reasons we chose it as the backbone of our frontend technology stack. Its vast ecosystem offers numerous resources, tools, and libraries that significantly enhance the development experience. Additionally, React's popularity ensures it is future-proof, with ongoing development and improvements guaranteed.</p><h3>Next.js</h3><p>For a long time, we relied on Create React App (CRA) to bootstrap our frontend applications. However, as our projects grew in complexity, we faced challenges due to the lack of updates to CRA. At one point, even the React documentation stopped recommending it for creating new projects. So, over the past two years, we made a significant shift to Next.js for all new projects, finding it to be a more powerful and flexible solution that aligns with modern development practices.</p><p>Next.js offers several advantages over CRA, including built-in server-side rendering, static site generation, and enhanced performance optimizations. This transition has allowed us to build more performant and SEO-friendly applications while maintaining excellent developer experience.</p><h3>Node.js</h3><p>While we have a dedicated backend team that handles most of our backend development, the server-rendering capabilities of Next.js mean that we, as frontend developers, often need to consider backend code as well. Next.js utilizes Node.js for this server-side functionality which requires us to have a good understanding of Node.js to efficiently manage server-side rendering and other backend-related tasks.&nbsp;</p><h3>Strapi</h3><p>For marketing and other content-rich websites, we use Strapi as our headless content management system (CMS). Strapi provides content teams with an intuitive and easy-to-navigate dashboard, enabling them to manage and deliver content efficiently. Its flexible and customizable backend allows us, developers, to implement project-specific custom features. Strapi’s API-first approach integrates seamlessly with our Next.js-based stack, ensuring a smooth and efficient development process.</p>

<h3>REST / GraphQL</h3><p>In most projects, we use traditional RESTful APIs for frontend-backend communication. However, for projects leveraging Strapi, we have found GraphQL to be a more convenient solution. It streamlines the communication between Next.js and Strapi, making the implementation and maintenance of our Strapi based projects more efficient and straightforward.</p><h3>Ant Design&nbsp;</h3><p>Ant Design (Antd) has been our go-to UI framework, offering a comprehensive set of components that enable rapid and efficient application development. However, using Antd has not been without its challenges. Delivering accessible products is a top priority for us, and we have found that Antd components are not always fully accessible. This has necessitated various workarounds and fixes on our part to enhance accessibility. Additionally, when we aim to give our projects a unique and custom appearance, overriding Antd styles has proven to be clunky and difficult to maintain.</p><p>As a result, we have been experimenting with other UI libraries. We tried Radix UI, which offers unstyled components. While the developer experience with Radix has been positive, the lack of pre-defined styles places a significant demand on developers' time to implement custom styling.</p><p>Currently, we are exploring Mantine, and the experience has been excellent so far. Mantine provides a wide range of components and utilities, ensures great accessibility, and makes the process of overriding styles much easier compared to Antd. If Mantine continues to perform well, we might consider switching all of our projects to it in the future.</p>

<h3>Styled-Components</h3><p>Styled-Components further enhances our ability to create custom styles by allowing us to write CSS directly within our JavaScript code. This approach promotes better organization and reusability of styles, enabling us to seamlessly integrate our custom designs with UI libraries we use.&nbsp;</p><h3>TanStack Query and React Hook Form</h3><p>State management and data fetching are critical aspects of any frontend application. TanStack Query (formerly React Query) has considerably improved the way we handle server state. Its caching and synchronization capabilities ensure our applications are both efficient and responsive. React Hook Form simplifies form management, providing a performant and flexible solution for handling form state and validation.</p><h3>Zod and OpenAPI-TypeScript</h3><p>Validation and type safety are crucial for robust applications. Zod allows us to define schemas and validate data with ease. OpenAPI-TypeScript has dramatically improved our API communication by generating TypeScript types from OpenAPI specifications. This ensures type safety and consistency between our frontend and backend, reducing the likelihood of runtime errors.</p><h3>ESLint, Prettier, and Stylelint</h3><p>Code quality and consistency are paramount. ESLint helps us catch potential issues and enforce coding standards, while Prettier ensures our code is consistently formatted. Stylelint keeps our CSS clean and error-free, making our styles more maintainable.</p>

<h3>Google reCAPTCHA, Vault, and GitHub CI/CD</h3><p>Security and automation are integral to our development process. Google reCAPTCHA helps protect our applications from spam and abuse. Vault manages our secrets and sensitive data securely. Our migration to GitHub has enabled our Devops team to implement advanced CI/CD pipelines, streamlining our development workflows and ensuring faster and more reliable deployments.</p><h3>End-to-End Testing with Cypress</h3><p>End-to-end testing is an important addition for ensuring our applications work as intended. On select projects, in coordination with our backend team, we utilize Cypress, a powerful testing framework that allows us to write comprehensive tests and catch issues before they reach production.&nbsp;</p>

<h3>Docker, Kubernetes, Sentry, AWS, and S3</h3><p>Our infrastructure and monitoring stack are equally important. Docker and Kubernetes facilitate containerization and orchestration, enabling scalable and resilient deployments. Sentry helps us monitor and debug errors in real-time. AWS and S3 provide the backbone for our hosting and storage needs, ensuring our applications are fast and reliable.</p><h3>Figma</h3><p>Although Figma is primarily a tool for designers, we as frontend developers spend a significant amount of time using it. Its intuitive user interface allows us to efficiently translate designs into code, ensuring seamless collaboration between design and development. This makes Figma an invaluable part of our workflow.</p><h3>Conclusion</h3><p>Our frontend technology stack has come a long way since the early days of GoodRequest. The adoption of Next.js and the integration of various modern yet proven technologies have significantly enhanced our development process. Yet, as we continue to evolve, we remain on the constant lookout for new technologies that can further improve our efficiency and developer experience, allowing us to build more robust, scalable, and performant applications.&nbsp;</p>

63a1932f7937507b56dcebd0_Backend-techstack-01.png

Backend-techstack.png

Branislav Brincko

In the fast-paced world of web development, staying updated with the latest technologies is essential for delivering top-notch applications and websites. At GoodRequest, we have continuously evolved our frontend technology stack to ensure we leverage the best tools and frameworks available. This blog post will take you through our journey, highlighting the key technologies we use and how they have enhanced our development process.

Our Frontend Tech Stack: Focused On Performance And Scalability

LinkedIn

Write to us

Do you have a project you want to start? We are here for you!

<p><a href="https://www.shopsys.cz/">Shopsys</a> is a leading Czech company specializing in the creation of medium and large customized e-shops. With a team of over 80 experts, they have completed projects for companies such as OfficeDepot, Mountfield, and SCONTO Nábytok. They are a reliable partner for clients in the e-commerce sector, offering modern technologies and unique know-how from large projects.&nbsp;</p><h2>Joint e-commerce and mobile solutions from GoodRequest and Shopsys&nbsp;</h2><p>Our collaboration will allow us to combine the expertise of both companies to comprehensive e-commerce solutions that enhance user experience and support long-term sales growth.</p><h3>Mobile applications from GoodRequest</h3><p>With the continuous increase in smartphone usage, the importance of mobile commerce also grows. This is particularly relevant for large B2C and B2B merchants known for building strong and loyal customer bases. Shopsys’ clients meet these criteria. Therefore, we aim to offer them the opportunity to develop a mobile application in direct collaboration with their established partner, leveraging our expertise in this field.</p>

Mobile apps for e-shops are no longer just a trend, but a proven sales channel. For large merchants who focus on long-term customer relationships rather than one-off sales, these apps offer a number of interesting opportunities. For example, push notifications have been shown to be up to ten times more effective in acquisition tactics compared to email marketing.

<p>Mobile applications provide e-shops with the opportunity to improve customer relationships, increase retention, and enhance their experience, all while reducing marketing costs and potentially increasing profits through more frequent and valuable purchases.</p>

Through apps, customers can track their orders, receive personalised offers based on previous purchases or use a mobile camera to view products in augmented reality. These enhanced capabilities help online merchants strengthen customer relationships, leading to more frequent and larger purchases, and thus increasing profits.

<h3>E-commerce solutions from Shopsys</h3><p>On the other hand, we were looking for a reliable and experienced partner to help us expand our portfolio of e-commerce services. Shopsys has an excellent reputation and extensive experience in developing custom e-shop solutions. This collaboration allows us to offer our customers comprehensive and proven solutions in the e-commerce sector, built on modern technologies.</p>

<h2>Collaboration&nbsp;</h2><p>Our goal is to create top-notch digital products, which is why we only collaborate with experienced partners who can contribute unique know-how to joint projects. From this perspective, Shopsys is an excellent partner with more than 800 e-commerce solutions to its credit.&nbsp;</p><p>In addition, we had the opportunity to test how our cooperation will work in the creation of a <a href="https://www.goodrequest.com/work/notino">B2B mobile app for Notino</a>, as members of the Shopsys team were also part of the project.</p>

<p>When a client approaches us for the development of both a mobile application and an e-shop solution, we are happy to jointly take care of both. At GoodRequest, we will be responsible for developing the mobile or web application, while Shopsys will provide the custom back-end for the e-shop platform.</p><p>GoodRequest will handle the development of mobile applications using the FE API within the Shopsys Platform. This integration allows our customers to address all their needs easily and efficiently in one place, simplifying the process and ensuring high quality and consistency of the final solution.</p><p>Overall, this solution offers our customers a simpler and more efficient process for developing an e-shop and mobile application, leading to better results and client satisfaction.</p>

Objevte možnosti, které přináší spolupráce českého lídra v oblasti e-commerce řešení, společnosti Shopsys, a slovenského experta na vývoj mobilních aplikací. Dohromady přinášíme zkušenosti z více než 1000 realizovaných projektů a 30 let na trhu. Spojením našich zkušeností pomáháme firmám vytvářet špičkové digitální produkty a klientům v oblasti e-commerce zajišťujeme dlouhodobý růst značky, prodeje a lepší uživatelskou zkušenost.

#grpartneři: odborníci na e-commerce platformy Shopsys

Objavte možnosti, ktoré prináša spolupráca českého lídra v e-commerce riešeniach, Shopsys, a slovenského experta na vývoj mobilných aplikácií. Kombinovane prinášame skúsenosti z viac ako 1000 realizovaných projektov a 30 rokov na trhu. Spojením našej expertízy pomáhame biznisom vytvoriť špičkové digitálne produkty a podporiť dlhodobý rast značky, predaja a zlepšiť používateľskú skúsenosť pre klientov v oblasti e-commerce.

#grpartners: Shopsys, odborníci na e-commerce platformy

Shopsys partnerhsip hero.png

goodrequest Shopsys partnerhsip hero.png

Bruno Grinč

Discover the possibilities brought by the cooperation of the Czech leader in e-commerce solutions, Shopsys, and a Slovak expert in mobile application development. Together, we bring experience from more than 1000 implemented projects and 30 years on the market. By combining our expertise, we help businesses create top-notch digital products, support long-term brand growth, increase sales, and improve the user experience for clients in the e-commerce sector.

#grpartners: Shopsys, Experts in e-commerce platforms

<p>We’re a trusted partner who can help your organisation discover and leverage new business opportunities, create outstanding digital products, and drive long-term growth for your brand.</p>

Experts in

GoodRequest-2024.jpg

 GoodRequest

<p>We’re a digital studio with over 10 years of experience creating sustainable products for companies ranging from start-ups to industry leaders. Our work brings lasting value, a genuine competitive advantage, and is positioned for long-term growth.</p>

Our projects

We help turn ideas into long-term success

Testimonials

What we do

We  define and validate your product idea

Product 

<p>Successful and sustainable products are placed at the intersection of human and business needs. To create a successful product, we take the time to thoroughly understand your target audience and business objectives before we do any work.</p>

Excellent outcomes through research and design

Design

<p>Our certified UX/UI designers work closely with your users to understand their needs, behaviours, and preferences. They conduct user research and usability testing to gather real user experiences and honest opinions.&nbsp;</p>

Full-scale mobile and web app development 

Development

<p>Since 2013, we’ve deployed more than 200 successful mobile and web applications. Our testers and developers have received the prestigious Citadelo, ISTQB, and SOACP certifications. We invest to the professional development of our people so they can create high-quality digital products.</p>

Growth

<p>Launching a digital product is just the beginning; we don't stop there. We stay ahead of the curve by building our products on reliable and scalable platforms. This ensures that they continue to grow along with your business.</p>

Experts in
softwaredigital productsapp developmentproduct designe-commercefintech

We help turn ideas into long-term success

6 M

A digital guide for children in the world of finance TABI from Tatra banka

Modernization and streamlining of beauty salons with Notino Partner

2k+

Creating a state-of-the-art experience for Benu pharmacies

-35 %

Creating a consistent digital experience for Fitshaker, the largest fitness community in Slovakia

3

Creating an attractive design strategy for the most prestigious business magazine in Slovakia Forbes

What we do

Stay ahead of the curve.

Is a mobile app necessary for your e-shop?

Our Frontend Tech Stack: Focused On Performance And Scalability

#grpartners: Shopsys, Experts in e-commerce platforms

Experts in softwaredigital productsapp developmentproduct designe-commercefintech

We help turn ideas into long-term success

6 M

A digital guide for children in the world of finance TABI from Tatra banka

Modernization and streamlining of beauty salons with Notino Partner

2k+

Creating a state-of-the-art experience for Benu pharmacies

-35 %

Creating a consistent digital experience for Fitshaker, the largest fitness community in Slovakia

3

Creating an attractive design strategy for the most prestigious business magazine in Slovakia Forbes

What we do

Stay ahead of the curve.

Is a mobile app necessary for your e-shop?

Our Frontend Tech Stack: Focused On Performance And Scalability

#grpartners: Shopsys, Experts in e-commerce platforms

Experts in
softwaredigital productsapp developmentproduct designe-commercefintech