Retail & Distribution Software Development Services
Arthur C Clarke’s well-known adage that “a sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” describes the essence of what we would expect of tomorrow’s retail & distribution technology. Using data to build a retail IT solution and revolutionize shopping is one of the tech trends that the worlds’ top retail companies are using to boost sales and facilitate operational activities.
Retail companies are aiming to stay afloat and successfully deal with the ever-changing trade environment. They use the services of the retail and logistics software development firms to offer enhanced customer experience to their buyers and remain competitive. What is more, retail software helps companies to optimize business operations, achieve greater transparency and automation.
What Is Retail Software Development and How It Works
Retail applications used in-store reshape the shopping experience — from introducing smart mirrors in the fitting room to integrating smart speakers and voice-activated assistants, as BevMo! stores in California do. The in-store shopping tool, Smart Aisle, encourages shoppers to talk about their preferences and suggests three products that are the perfect fit.
Another example is a skincare and beauty store from Shanghai, that uses facial recognition, artificial intelligence and interactive skin analysis stations to help consumers make purchases effortlessly.
In-store is all good, but the real retail revolution happens online, especially in the times of pandemic, when 41% of customers choose shopping online for things they would normally buy in-store. Self-taught recommendations engines are doing important work while staying behind the scene. Once Amazon introduced personalized recommendations technology that resulted in a 29% increase in revenue.
Driverless technology and aerial delivery drones are opening new doors for autonomous distribution. DHL is testing self-driving trucks, Google launches its driverless cars to beat Amazon Prime in same-date delivery.
Most tech firms offer custom retail software development adjusting the solution to the specific needs of a company. Today retail tech modernization often involves new retail accounting software, electronic solutions for e-commerce, AI-powered tools for customer data monitoring, customer chatbots, order fulfillment automation, face recognition technologies, etc.
Benefits of the Software for Retail Business
Modern businesses are well aware of the crucial benefits of proper retail software development that allows them to be easily accessible from almost anywhere via phone, tablets, or PCs. Below we’ve outlined some of the major challenges retail companies need to address and how retail distribution software helps to resolve them:
Of course, the challenges vary depending on a number of factors: your location, size of your business, networking practices, availability of retail management systems, etc.
Retail Software Development for Small Businesses
Just like any business, small retail companies need to keep up to date with the latest trends. For them, innovative technologies offer an opportunity to stand out in the saturated market at a reasonable cost and compete with giants.
An illustrative example is the case of Wayfair, an online furniture retailer that entered Ikea’s market. Wayfair introduced an augmented reality app to visualize furniture in rooms ahead of purchase, just by using a smartphone. As a result, you can see your room set at scale, walk around it, see it from different sides, observe how the piece of furniture would look and fit in your space.
There was a time when small-business people did not have to be tech savvy. But now, in this upside-down post-2020 world, it is vital that anyone running a small business be as smart about technology as they are about business.
Here are the retail software development trends to pay attention to:
- Solutions for physical safety and social distancing, which is increasingly popular since Covid-19 restrictions on businesses.
- AR/VR solutions that allow to blur the line between the brick-and-mortar and online shops. Augmented shopping is being used by large retailers such as IKEA to allow customers to preview goods through technology,
- Point of Service software (POS) to streamline and organize e-commerce and customer service.
- Cashless and even employee free stores are becoming the norm, this is a trend that has been sped up in 2022, so small businesses need to be prepared for this.
- Personalization and recommendations from data are an important factor in online marketplaces, and tailoring to your audience through these approaches is a great tool.
Software Development Services for Retail & Distribution
A retail & distribution software development company should be able to offer retail software development services to fit your individual needs. Such services must be quick, highly adaptable and flexible to be able to take into account all your business specifics, project terms, and go beyond the expectations.
Modern retail software development market offers a variety of distribution & retail software development services and solutions, including but not limited to offshore React development of retail solutions tailored to your specific requirements:
- Consulting. It is often an initial stage of retail software development, when a client is looking for available tech opportunities and needs to get an expert technology recommendation.
- IOs and Android development. The time people spend with their smartphones continuously increases. To boost sales and ensure seamless online shopping for your customers, it’s high time to think about the best android app development software for retail.
- E-commerce web development. This includes online shops and platforms based on the best-suited tech stack e.g., offshore Ruby development and retail drupal software development.
- Web design. Trade-related solutions must be responsive and user-friendly, whether it is an e-commerce webstore, small retail business website, application, or logistics management system.
Retail & Distribution Software Development Solutions
Today, businesses are looking for retail software development partners that would be able not only to tailor the end product to your individual needs but scale it depending on the size of your business: whether online marketplaces, mid-sized and large enterprise e-commerce companies or small retail businesses and startups. There are such reasons:
- Integrated ERP & MRP systems allowing purchasing, operational oversight, franchise and warehouse management.
- Software for back office including inventory management, warehouse management, etc.
- Point of Service (POS) applications with cash register software to work seamlessly with payment systems, including checks, bank cards, and mobile payments.
- Wholesale software solutions for large-scale businesses.
- Optimization solutions unlocking sales growth opportunities, including marketing planning, promotion management, etc.
- Complete life cycle monitoring, including supplier management, product analysis and quality control.
- Logistics software solutions integrated with APIs of the delivery companies, e.g. USPS, UPS, FedEx.
- Customer-centered products, including loyalty programs, tracking systems, customer account management, rewards systems, etc.
Technologies Required for Retail Software Projects
There are a few major things for you to know if you plan to hire a retail software development company or a dedicated retail software developer.
First, you should have a clear vision of the tech stack popular in this area of software development. Today, technologies used for retail software development include PHP, Javascript, Ruby, React, Node JS.
Second, you should get an idea of the basic qualifications that a retail software developer should have. Here’s a sample of a retail software developer resume:
Custom Retail Software Development Cost
The cost of retail software development varies depending on the country where you will hire a distribution & retail software development company. You can see the differences in the cost of hiring retail software developers from different countries in the table below:
| Country | Average annual retail software developer salary |
| USA | $5,661 |
| UK | $3,397 |
| Canada | $4,250 |
| Germany | $4,920 |
| Ukraine | $2,900* |
*Ukrainian salaries are provided based on Mobilunity’s Recruitment Team research on the local job markets. All salaries are net and do not include the service fee (in case of hiring on a dedicated team model). The salaries are provided for comparison purposes and could be not entirely accurate. Contact us to know the exact cost of hiring a developer corresponding to the required parameters.
Cooperating With Retail Software Companies in Ukraine
Besides an affordable cost, Ukraine offers a variety of benefits for those who hire a retail & distribution software development company:
- A massive growing IT sector with thousands of professionals offers a large pool of talent. The country ranks 4th in the world by the number of IT workers.
- Ukrainians share western cultural and business values that make it easier to communicate.
- Geographical proximity to Europe allows clients to meet their Ukrainian teams in about two hours in flight.
- Ukrainian developers are well-known for their high level of education. Most tech experts possess an academic degree.
- Ukraine complies with GDPR data protection rules.
How You Can Benefit From Hiring a Dedicated Retail Software Development Team at Mobilunity
Mobilunity is one of the most trusted and efficient dedicated development team providers to assist you in finding the right people for retail IT solutions, hire fintech software developers. Our experienced recruiters will find well-qualified coders, so you can achieve your business goals and get the most out of retail software development services. Moreover, we are aware of the latest technologies and new equipment, which makes us the best Ruby development company to reach your business goals.
Top-5 benefits of Mobilunity’s IT dedicated development team services are as following:
- Fast and high-quality recruitment
- Onboarding and cultivating relationships between you and your new team
- Increased productivity of the dedicated team
- Opportunity to scale the team up and down
- Smart expenditures
