Ecommerce Mobile Application

Shipping application for eCommerce sellers that was developed in 5 months.

The Company and Product

Easyship is a company based in Hong Kong that specializes in providing shipping software for eCommerce sellers and growing businesses.

It offers its customers a wide range of courier services to choose from, with over 250 available choices with different price ranges. The software calculates tax and duty costs, prepares the right paperwork for customs clearance and delivery, and enables shipment tracking.

Easyship offers a cloud-based web platform and mobile application integrated with eCommerce platforms and marketplaces to manage and automate all of its clients’ shipping needs. It allows them to compare shipping quotes, generate labels, schedule pickups, and monitor finances.

Client’s feedback

Jason Lau

ASSOCIATE PRODUCT MANAGER at Easyship

Users love the app

My favorite thing about this collaboration is the app’s consistency. All pages have the same high quality and response. Our beta-testing users love the app and they can’t even find bugs in the MVP.

Scope and Highlights

2 DEVELOPERS

GAINED A SCALE-UP INVESTMENT

REACT NATIVE & TYPESCRIPT

250+

COURIER OPTIONS

2nd

COLLABORATION

MONTHS TO LAUNCH THE MVP

The Challenge

Easyship is a returning customer that we helped by rebuilding their marketing website, following their in-house design.

Their UX data showed that a mobile application was a next-in-line necessity, and after confirming the business strategy and product roadmap, our cooperation rekindled.

With the success of their business came the expansion to other countries, and an increase in their sales. Covid also caused a huge growth in courier demand and keeping up with competitors created a new software need for the client.

With their current backend team, which took care of the UX/UI design, the client needed to outsource a team of developers that understands their existing web product and business logic that had been working for a few years, and that could build a mobile app from scratch that would stand out from their competitors, and be based on their API without touching the back-end.

Key challenges of the project included:

Building a mobile application from scratch, flawlessly integrated with their web platform and multilingual features.
Co-working with the client’s internal backend team while in different time zones, calendars, and holiday schedules.
Understand the product, business logic and user flows of the web application, and reflect it in the new app.

Easyship application screenshot

The Process

The main goal was to create a front-end layer for a mobile app built from scratch and based on the API shared by Easyship’s back-end team; to understand the logic and user flows of the existing product, and to reflect it in all the expected app features, such as push notifications, pick-up lists generators, and touch ID log-in.

The frontend was built using React Native and Typescript, and the team consisted of two developers, one PM, and one QA. The client had its own internal backend team and this part of the app couldn’t be touched. Because of their time zone, open communication was crucial for the collaboration. Fortunately, the Associate Product Manager’s hard work and openness to answer our questions, helped push development forward.

The app needed to wrap up the basic functions of the shipping platform, be available in a multilingual version, and be integrated with the previously built website platform. Using a structured road map and defined milestones allowed the process to be adjusted to the client’s work schedule and stay within budget and deadline.

This is how we made it happen:

Thorough research to understand the logic and user flows in the existing product and reflect it in a new app.
Paying a lot of attention to animations and UI details: the quality and great UX of the app were very significant. (UX/UI were designed by Easyship).
Clear and open communication to defeat the time difference, and detailed reporting to the stakeholder at the management level.
Working on the API of the web application, and preparation of receiving data properly.

Team’s voice

Paweł Łubianka

PROJECT MANAGER

A successful collaboration

In a multicultural & multilingual project, it's important to overcommunicate ideas to avoid misunderstandings. When the scope wasn't fully defined, the team showed huge proactiveness and the client was very open to brainstorming and suggestions, which made this a successful collaboration. What I'm most proud of is how the team managed and handled requirement changes during development, and remained motivated throughout.

The Outcome

After 5 months of work, the MVP was delivered and ready for beta testing. The result is an app that stands out with great UX and UI quality and animation details.

It contains a lot of data, a variety of filters for sorting, and searching options for the lists of shipments and pickups. The app has mobile functionalities personalized for the industry’s needs, such as a barcode scanner for easy search of shipment information.

The end user will get the possibility to manage, control, search for shipments/pickups, use live chat support, receive in-app notifications, and scan barcodes. All these things will make shipment and courier pickup management easier and quicker for eCommerce companies.

As of the beginning of 2022, the app is currently in beta testing and end-user feedback gathering. The initial first impressions are very positive and users can’t find bugs that need to be fixed. With this initial product, the client expects to prove its profitability and propose new features and apps to expand on the market’s demands and user requirements.

The success of this project hinged on the following factors:

Developing with the main goal in mind: an app that stands out for its UI/UX.
Adapt to the client’s schedule and team collaboration demands.
App consistency: all pages have the same high quality and response.