Scaling Brick-and-Mortar Businesses with SaaS-Powered Mobile Apps
A loyal customer walks past a store to buy the same product online, for the third time this month. What they need is exactly what SaaS-powered mobile apps for brick-and-mortar businesses provide: the ability to explore and compare products, place orders, and skip checkout lines while still enjoying the in-store experience.
This scenario plays out daily across retail businesses. The good news is, your customers aren’t avoiding your business personally. They just require a customer experience that fits their lifestyle.
Mobile apps help retailers create what customers expect: the phygital space, one that blends the experience of a physical store with digital convenience. Besides, this path opens a window for interacting with the buyers more effectively, getting them hooked with loyalty rewards, truly personalized offers, and real-time stock updates.
As providers of mobile app development services, we've helped retail and manufacturing clients implement scalable custom SaaS-powered applications that measurably increase customer retention and revenue. The insights in this article come from real-world implementations where businesses successfully scaled their operations by offering improved customer experiences through mobile-first SaaS solutions.
Key takeaways
Customers today prefer “phygital” experiences, which means a blend of physical and digital shopping.
The power of SaaS-based apps lies in such measurable business benefits as unified operations, automated marketing, scalable infrastructure, and new revenue opportunities.
Retail apps are typically built to serve three core needs: increasing customer engagement, providing operational efficiency features, and establishing centralized management.
SaaS-powered mobile app development costs heavily depend on scope, design choices, feature requirements, backend integrations, and hardware support.
The digital shift: How SaaS-powered apps help move from physical to phygital
If you've been running a retail business for a while, you've probably noticed your customers’ shopping habits change. They look up reviews of the products on their phones while standing in your store, expect to pay with a tap, and get frustrated when they can't find what they saw on your social platforms. To stay competitive, you now have no choice but to meet customers where they already are: in the “phygital” space.
What does that mean in practice? Let’s take Gen Z as an example. In 2024, 55% of them said they bought products while browsing social media. Yet surprisingly, 53% of this generation’s consumers still prefer physical stores. To stay ahead in this sort of confusing reality, retailers are building custom mobile apps for physical stores that support both “showrooming” and “webrooming”. This entails offering price matching, enabling mobile checkout, implementing real-time inventory monitoring, and providing AR experiences.
Of course, not every retail business does badly without acting on these expectations. Yet, if the challenges below sound familiar, you might want to explore mobile apps as a solution.
Low retention, with most customers visiting once or twice and never returning;
Checkout friction due to long queues and slow payment processing;
Missing customer data, which means your staff recognize regulars but don’t have insights into their purchasing patterns or preferences;
Inventory chaos, with staff unable to locate products and customers constantly hearing “We're out of that”;
Generic experiences, with every customer getting identical treatment, regardless of their purchase history or loyalty.
If any of these issues hit too close to home, this doesn’t mean you have to choose between digital and physical. You just need to combine the two mindfully. SaaS-powered mobile apps are designed to make the transition smoother. Here are the benefits you can expect.
Unified operations
Instead of switching between different tools for inventory, staff management, and sales, you can have a unified system that keeps all data sources in sync. For instance, when a customer places an order for pickup, your staff instantly sees the request and can check if all items are available. Meanwhile, the system automatically updates the inventory data while sending the customer a notification that their order is ready.
Smart marketing automation
With built-in tools for marketing tasks, you can track what customers actually buy and effectively create personalized campaigns, loyalty rewards, and targeted offers that get customers hooked. This means your marketing efforts become predictive instead of reactive, thus driving sales more effectively.
Meeting customers where they are
Customers want shopping experiences that align with their lifestyle, habits, and schedules. And through apps, they can interact with your business on their own terms: place orders on the go, get product support through the app, and check availability before making the trip to the store.
When we at Brights started working with Reno, a Polish sliding door manufacturer, our client aimed to help customers visualize custom door systems before purchasing. Besides, the platform had to match the quality of the product, as well as showcase the endless combinations of styles, materials, and dimensions.
We built on the open-source e-commerce platform Saleor for extra-fast, dynamic, and personalized shopping experiences, which also helped reduce costs. The new Reno website allows customers to design sliding doors in real-time using 3D configurators, without the need to visit a showroom first. Hence, the platform became that perfect phygital space our client needed.
Scalable infrastructure
When you're ready to open a second store or expand into a franchise network, scalable retail app development is a must. SaaS-powered apps work well here because they're built on cloud systems that grow with you. You can add new locations and functionality without rebuilding the system, and the infrastructure will automatically handle increased traffic and data loads.
New profit opportunities
Through strategic features, mobile apps unlock income opportunities beyond traditional sales. Customers add impulse items when browsing pickup orders from home, push notifications about previously viewed items recover abandoned sales, and the data foundation reveals which products generate interest but don't convert. Naturally, all this helps you optimize pricing and promotions.
When to choose a SaaS-powered app? A tip from Brights
“While we at Brights build both 100% custom apps and SaaS-powered solutions, we're always honest about what makes sense for each client's budget and goals. The decision usually comes down to two main factors: how much customization you actually need compared to standard features, and your sales volume. If your requirements are fairly standard, taking something ready-made makes sense. If you're processing high volumes, those monthly SaaS fees can quickly add up to thousands or even tens of thousands per month. At that point, custom development often pays for itself. Each case is different and requires its own approach.”
— Bohdan K., business analyst at Brights
If you're ready to take the next step and explore scaling options, our experts in full-cycle mobile app development and web development services will help you figure out the optimal store digitization strategy.
Core features of a scalable SaaS-powered retail app
When evaluating SaaS-powered apps for a retail business, it's easy to get overwhelmed by functionality options and technical specifications. From our experience, the most effective retail automation apps aren't just customer-oriented. They're comprehensive platforms that both improve the shopping experience AND help your team achieve a reliable, seamless workflow.
We’ve gathered a list of features that make a difference across all operations. However, keep in mind that this functionality is most often achieved through a combination of web and mobile apps, both of which can be built using SaaS platforms.
Tools that drive customer engagement
| Loyalty programs | Points and rewards for customers with each purchase, which can be redeemed through loyalty programs via mobile apps |
|---|---|
| Push notifications for abandoned carts | Automatic reminders about items customers viewed or added to cart but didn't purchase |
| New arrival alerts | Notifications when products in customers' favorite categories or from preferred brands arrive in stock |
| QR code mobile ordering system | Table codes or product tags to view detailed information, place orders, and pay without waiting in line |
| Wishlist and favorites | Saving items for later purchase and receive automatic alerts when wishlist items go on sale or come back in stock |
| Special offers | Personalized discounts and special offers, which increase customer lifetime value through emotional connection |
| Gamified shopping challenges | Monthly challenges like “visit 5 times” with rewards that increase purchase frequency and customer engagement via apps |
| Virtual try-on features | AR technology that lets customers visualize clothing, accessories, home decor, etc. |
Features that improve daily operations
| Live inventory tracking | Real-time view of what's in stock at every location, with automatic updates whenever something is sold, returned, or moved between stores |
|---|---|
| Barcode scanning for staff | Tool that lets employees scan any product to instantly see its price, stock levels, product details, and customer reviews |
| Workforce management system | Systems for daily task assignments and employee scheduling mobile tools with functionality for shift swapping and time-off requests |
| Mobile analytics dashboard for sales tasks | Visual charts showing daily, weekly, and monthly sales with easy comparisons to see how you're doing versus last month or last year |
| POS-integrated mobile apps | Automatic system that updates your inventory, customer profiles, and loyalty points with every sale without having to enter data manually |
| Predictive reordering alerts | Push notifications for physical businesses that inform when it's time to reorder products based on how fast they're selling, seasonal patterns, etc. |
| Customer service chat integration | Feature that gives staff access to customer purchase history and preferences, whether they're helping in person or through the app |
Support for centralized control and offline resilience
| Multi-location store management and performance monitoring | Comparison view of sales, customer traffic, and inventory turnover across all stores, with an option of digging deeper into specific numbers for each location |
|---|---|
| Offline transaction processing | Offline mode for store apps to support continued order acceptance and payment processing even when the internet is spotty, with automatic syncing later |
| Role-based permissions system | Customizable access levels that let managers see financial reports while part-time staff only get inventory lookup and basic customer service tools |
| Franchise-specific reporting | Location-specific performance data for individual franchisees while keeping corporate oversight and combined reporting for the whole network |
| Automated cloud backups | Automatic secure backup of customer profiles, transaction history, and business data with enterprise-level protection and disaster recovery |
| Remote inventory and pricing management | Centralized system for updating stock levels, changing prices, and managing promotions across all locations |
| AI-powered demand forecasting | Analysis of past sales, local events, and seasonal patterns to predict what you'll need and help optimize your purchasing decisions |
Sure, seeing all these capabilities might feel like it’s a lot, especially when you're thinking about implementation costs. But the reality is that successful web and mobile transformation for retailers doesn't require building everything at once overnight.
Whether you're managing dozens of locations or running a single storefront, we start with what matters most to your operations now. Through years of MVP development, we've become true experts at assessing immediate pain points that can’t wait, solving those first, and gradually moving forward with advanced functionality when your business calls for it.
Case study: Digitizing inventory for tobacco manufacturers with a mobile app
The benefits of digital solutions for brick-and-mortar businesses sound really promising in theory. Yet, it’s always best to see how it works in practice before rushing into any decisions. Brights has quite a few relevant projects up our sleeve, both SaaS-powered and built completely from scratch. One of them is Trust, a mobile scanning application for tobacco manufacturers.
Starting over with a new solution
Our clients were dealing with familiar challenges of managing thousands of products across multiple locations using an overly complicated system that slowed down processes. We took on the task of building a new, more efficient mobile solution.
The main requirement was to create a simple yet effective solution that would scan a product, retrieve information, and update the status. We needed to avoid the complicated training processes and any technical friction so that the solution would be easy to use for every team member, from box operators to executives.
Brights started by researching how employees worked with inventory, collecting data, testing different approaches, and creating an intuitive UI/UX design. In the end, we delivered Trust, a mobile scanning application that allows workers to scan a box or product with their phone and instantly access everything they need to know about it. The unified system that makes it possible behind the scenes includes:
Product scanning for boxes and blocks of tobacco products
Cloud-based product database for unified data management
Real-time statistics and tracking capabilities
Dual login system (username/password or QR code access)
Integration with Zebra scanning machines running on Android
Ultimately, we achieved our goal. Teams now save time on daily tasks, and companies have the capability to bring structure to their product management and logistics processes.
Cost considerations when scaling brick-and-mortar with a mobile app
One of the biggest concerns when planning a digital transformation is the cost of it all. To avoid unpleasant surprises, you need to plan your budget in advance and consider all potential expenses. These typically include scope and features, design choices (white-label or custom), and a scalable backend for mobile SaaS, which is essential for connecting the existing systems, managing user permissions, and syncing inventory. Hardware integration for scanners or specific POS systems also adds both complexity and cost to your project.
What you'll likely spend on a SaaS-powered app with Brights
Why do we list both web and mobile apps? Well, for complex functionality, the web app serves as the foundation with full features, while mobile apps integrate with this base to provide on-the-go access. Mobile development costs more due to platform-specific requirements, while web apps offer more functionality per dollar.
Our advice: Go cross-platform
There aren't many use cases where the project calls for native mobile app development. Unless you need complex AR/VR features, intensive 3D graphics, or hardware-specific integrations, we suggest building cross-platform apps with React Native or Flutter. Cross-platform mobile app development delivers high-performing apps for both iPhone and Android. About 80% of the code is shared between platforms, while the remaining 20% handles platform-specific features and optimizations. This approach cuts your development costs and timeline by 30% or more compared to building native apps.
Hidden costs to budget for
Beyond development itself, there are expenses that are easy to overlook but are crucial for the overall success of web and mobile app implementation:
Staff training, which includes initial sessions and ongoing support when adding new features;
Customer adoption, which calls for marketing campaigns, in-store promotions, and download incentives;
Customer support to handle technical issues, account problems, and feature requests;
Ongoing maintenance for security updates, new features, and system integration updates.
The good news is that most of these costs are predictable once you know what to look for. And once we know your requirements, we’ll be able to help with estimates and tips on cost savings.
Conclusion
The retail industry isn't very forgiving to businesses that can't meet customer expectations in today's phygital world. The ones thriving know how to adapt quickly. At the same time, we know that digitization can be a costly and lengthy process. That is why we recommend considering SaaS-powered mobile apps as a practical, budget-friendly solution.
Scalable retail app development doesn’t happen overnight, nor does it come without a financial commitment. Yet, with the right tech partner, you can get exactly what you need without breaking the bank. It doesn’t matter whether you're managing one location or twenty: we are here to help you create a brick-and-mortar tech strategy that makes running a business easier.
Our approach is simple: the right app for you is the one that adapts to your budget, scales as your business evolves, and assists you in building a strong bond with your customers. And we know exactly how to create one.
FAQ.
Absolutely! Brights is equipped to connect your existing systems — whether it's Square, Shopify POS, QuickBooks, or legacy ERP platforms — to your new SaaS-powered mobile app through secure APIs and integration layers. This means you keep using the systems that already work for your business while adding mobile capabilities that enhance your current operations.
