Ultimate Guide to Build a Live Video Shopping App Like Amazon Live

Key Takeaways:

• Live commerce is booming, with the global market projected to reach $184 billion by 2027, making now the best time to build a live video shopping app like Amazon Live.

• To build a Live Video Shopping App Like Amazon Live, you require combining real-time video streaming, interactive shopping tools, secure payments, and a smooth user experience to deliver high-converting, engaging live commerce.

• Development cost typically ranges from $20,000 to $80,000, depending on features, tech stack, and platform complexity.

• Scalability, high-quality streaming, and real-time interactivity are the biggest challenges, but the right tech stack and cloud infrastructure solve them.

• Future-ready apps will rely on AI, AR/VR, gamification, and advanced analytics to boost engagement and conversions.

• Multiple monetization models, subscriptions, commissions, ads, in-stream purchases, and gifting ensure strong long-term revenue potential.

• Hiring developers from JPLoft ensures clean architecture, faster delivery, secure integrations, and a scalable foundation for your Amazon Live–like app.

Live shopping is no longer the future; it’s happening now. With the global live commerce market expected to surpass $184 billion by 2027, brands worldwide are racing to tap into this high-conversion, interactive shopping trend. 

But one of the most common questions businesses ask is, “How much does it cost to build a live video shopping app like Amazon Live?” The straightforward answer is that development typically ranges between $20,000–$80,000, depending on features, tech stack, streaming capabilities, and overall complexity.

As more e-commerce platforms experiment with live selling, many brands now want to make an app like Amazon Live to boost engagement and drive instant sales.

So, in this blog, you’ll learn the complete process from key features and development steps to challenges, costs, tech stack, and monetization models to build your own Amazon Live–like app.

What is the Live Video Shopping App, Like Amazon Live?

A live video shopping app like Amazon Live is a platform that combines real-time streaming with e-commerce, allowing sellers and influencers to showcase products, engage with viewers, and drive instant purchases. 

Unlike traditional online shopping, these apps create an interactive and immersive experience, where viewers can ask questions, see product demonstrations, and make purchases without leaving the video stream. 

Businesses looking to tap into this growing trend often aim to build a video streaming app that integrates live broadcasting, secure payment gateways, and user-friendly interfaces. 

By choosing to develop an app like Amazon Live, brands can leverage the power of live engagement, increase sales conversion rates, and enhance customer loyalty by offering a more personalized shopping experience. 

This approach not only merges entertainment and commerce but also creates a scalable platform for modern retail.

Why Should You Invest in Building an App Like Amazon Live?

Investing in a live video shopping app is a smart move for businesses looking to merge entertainment and e-commerce. 

Here’s why you should consider it:

• Tap into a booming market: The demand for live video shopping is rapidly growing. By choosing to start an online video streaming business, you can reach millions of engaged viewers ready to make instant purchases.

• Boost sales and engagement: Interactive features like live chat, instant purchase, and product demonstrations help businesses develop a live video shopping app like Amazon Live that drives higher conversion rates compared to traditional online stores.

• Create a personalized shopping experience: By opting to make a custom video shopping app like Amazon Live, you can tailor the platform to your brand’s style, add unique features, and provide a seamless user experience that keeps customers coming back.

• Explore top business ideas: Live commerce opens up numerous opportunities from influencer-led product demos to niche-focused sales events, making it one of the top live streaming business ideas.

• Stay ahead of the competition: Early adoption of live video shopping technology allows your business to stand out, engage directly with audiences, and establish a strong presence in the modern e-commerce landscape.

With the live shopping trend showing no signs of slowing down, investing in a dedicated platform today can position your brand as a leader in the next generation of e-commerce.

Launching your own app not only enhances customer engagement but also creates long-term growth opportunities in the digital retail space.

Key Features of a Live Video Shopping App Like Amazon Live

When it comes to building a live video shopping app, features are one of the most important steps. They define how engaging, interactive, and user-friendly your app will be. 

The right video streaming app features not only keep viewers hooked but also encourage instant purchases, boosting your business growth. 

If you want to create a platform that rivals Amazon Live, you need to carefully select and integrate features that enhance both the seller and customer experience. 

Here’s a detailed look at the must-have features:

These app features are essential for creating a smooth, engaging, and profitable live shopping experience. By integrating them thoughtfully, you can develop an app that not only attracts viewers but also converts them into loyal customers. 

A well-featured platform ensures your brand stands out in the competitive world of live commerce.

How to Develop an App Like Amazon Live: Step-by-Step Process

Every successful live video shopping app begins with the same foundational question: “What is the complete process to develop an app like Amazon Live from start to finish?”

Creating such a platform involves strategic planning, strong technical execution, and seamless integration of live streaming, e-commerce, and user engagement features. 

Below is a quick overview of the main development steps:

• Market Research & Competitor Analysis

• Defining Features & App Architecture

• UI/UX Design for a Video Shopping App

• Choosing the Right Video Streaming Tech Stack

• Front-End & Back-End Development

• Integration of Live Streaming & E-commerce

• App Security, Compliance & Payment Setup

• QA Testing & Performance Optimization

• Deployment & Launch

• Ongoing Video Streaming App Maintenance & Upgrades

Now, let’s move deeper into the step-by-step process to develop an app like Amazon Live, breaking down each step with clarity and insights.

Step 1: Market Research & Competitor Analysis

To create a live video shopping app like Amazon Live, start with strong market research. Study user expectations, buying behavior, and what makes platforms like Amazon Live, TikTok Shop, and Instagram Live Shopping successful. 

Explore the best apps, understand their engagement patterns, and identify gaps your app can fill. This step helps you define a clear USP for your video shopping app development like Amazon Live, ensuring you build something innovative, scalable, and audience-ready. 

When you understand the market deeply before you create an app, you significantly increase its chances of long-term success.

Step 2: Define Features, App Architecture & User Flow

Next, build a detailed list of features you want to include. Whether you plan to develop a live video shopping app like Amazon Live or create a simplified MVP, clarity on features is essential. 

Some must-have features include high-quality live streaming, creator dashboards, in-stream shopping, real-time chat and engagement tools, product linking and catalog integration, secure payments, and analytics.

Since feature planning directly shapes development time and cost, many businesses choose to hire dedicated developers to ensure accurate architecture, clean coding practices, and faster execution. 

Step 3: UI/UX Design for a Video Shopping App

Design is the stage where your idea truly starts taking shape. With expert UI/UX design services, your app must deliver a seamless, distraction-free experience. 

Here, specialists design a video streaming app by focusing on smooth navigation, easy product discovery, visual clarity during live streams, minimal taps to checkout, and responsive layouts for all devices. 

A well-designed UI not only builds trust but also increases session time and drives more purchases. Strong UI/UX also reduces user drop-offs and enhances the overall shopping flow, making every interaction smooth and intuitive.

Step 4: Choosing the Right Video Streaming Tech Stack

To build an app like Amazon Live, selecting the right video streaming app tech stack is crucial. Your app must support low-latency streaming, adaptive bitrate, multi-device compatibility, CDN integration, and scalable cloud architecture. 

Many businesses now prefer cloud-based video shopping solutions like Amazon Live, ensuring better performance and easy scaling as your viewers increase.

The right mobile app tech stack also reduces buffering issues and ensures smooth real-time engagement. Investing in reliable streaming technology ultimately improves user satisfaction and boosts conversion rates.

Step 5: Front-End & Back-End Development

After finalizing the design and tech stack, developers begin building the front-end interface and back-end logic. Front-end development ensures smooth real-time interactions, dynamic UI updates, fast performance, and visually appealing pages. 

Back-end development handles streaming servers, product database, user management, payment workflow, content delivery, and notification engines. This is also where modern enhancements like AI in video streaming apps workflows can be integrated for smarter recommendations, real-time moderation, and improved personalization.

Both layers work together to develop an app like Amazon Live that delivers uninterrupted shopping experiences.

Step 6: Integrating Live Video & In-Stream Shopping

This is the heart of the entire platform. To make a custom video shopping app like Amazon Live, your app must enable sellers to go live anytime, showcase products, add clickable purchase links, and interact with viewers in real time. 

Your app should support advanced features like live reactions, comment moderation, polls, quizzes, and product tagging during streams. These features elevate your platform far beyond a typical streaming app.

While creating an app with powerful live video and interactive shopping capabilities, you build a seamless experience that turns viewers into buyers within seconds and this is why many brands prefer to hire mobile app developers with expertise in live-streaming architecture.

Step 7: App Security, Compliance & Payment Integration

Every video shopping app must be safe, stable, and compliant. You must include PCI-DSS-compliant payment systems, SSL certificates, data encryption, role-based access control, and fraud prevention protocols. 

This step is essential to avoid risks related to video streaming app security and ensure smooth checkout during live sessions. 

Strong compliance measures not only protect user data but also build trust, something every live commerce platform depends on. A secure system encourages repeat purchases and supports long-term scalability as your audience grows.

Step 8: QA Testing & Performance Optimization

Before launch, your platform undergoes multiple rounds of video streaming app testing on various devices, networks, and usage conditions. Key testing activities include load testing, scalability testing, UI/UX checks, payment gateway testing, latency monitoring, streaming stability verification, and integration testing. 

This is also where you ensure complete video streaming app compliance, preventing future legal or technical issues. Thorough testing ensures your app performs flawlessly even during high-traffic live sessions. 

This step directly impacts user satisfaction, retention, and the overall success of your platform.

Step 9: Deployment & Launch

Once tested and approved, your app is deployed to the Play Store, App Store, and other platforms. This includes completing the process to submit your iOS app to the App Store, ensuring all guidelines are met.

After that, you move forward to publish an app to the Google Play Store, making it accessible to a wider Android audience.

During this launch phase, you prepare marketing campaigns, influencer partnerships, and promotional live sessions to boost early traction. This stage answers a common query: “How to launch a video shopping platform like Amazon Live successfully?” 

Step 10: Continuous Updates & App Maintenance

Even after launch, your journey continues. Ongoing app maintenance service ensures your app remains stable and competitive. 

Routine activities include adding new features, fixing bugs, enhancing streaming quality, improving analytics, updating UI elements, and monitoring server performance. 

This long-term maintenance also helps you create a short video app, introduce promotional clips, and expand your content ecosystem, similar to developing an app like HBO Max but optimized for video commerce.

By following the complete process to develop an app like Amazon Live, you can achieve better results. 

By using the right tech stack, design strategy, cloud infrastructure, and security protocols, you can successfully create a video shopping app like Amazon Live that is scalable, engaging, and future-ready.

Tech Stack for Developing an App Like Amazon Live

Choosing the right video streaming app tech stack is crucial when you plan to build a live video shopping app like Amazon Live. The tech stack determines the app’s performance, scalability, and user experience, so selecting the right combination of front-end, back-end, and streaming technologies is essential. 

If you want to develop an app like Amazon Live the right tools and frameworks ensure smooth streaming, secure payments, and real-time interactivity.

Selecting the right tech stack is a foundational step to develop a live video shopping app like Amazon Live that is fast, reliable, and engaging. 

By integrating modern technologies for streaming, payments, and analytics, your app can offer a seamless shopping experience while scaling efficiently as your user base grows. 

A well-planned tech stack ensures that your platform not only attracts viewers but also converts them into loyal customers.

Cost to Develop a Video Shopping App Like Amazon Live

One of the most common questions businesses ask is: “What is the actual cost to build a video streaming app?” The answer depends on how complex you want the platform to be. The total cost largely varies based on design quality, feature set, chosen tech stack, and the expertise level of your development team. 

If you’re planning to create a live video shopping app similar to Amazon Live, the cost typically ranges between $20,000–$80,000+. This range fluctuates depending on whether you’re building a simple MVP or a fully scalable platform with advanced features.

A strategic development roadmap, optimized feature selection, and the right tech partner can significantly reduce the overall cost to build a video streaming app while ensuring a smooth, secure, and engaging shopping experience.

With a clear strategy, a well-defined development scope, and the right team, you can build an app that matches your budget while still delivering high-quality performance. 

Partnering with the mobile app development company in the UK ensures that every feature from live streaming to secure payments, is built with precision and long-term scalability in mind. 

Smart investment in the early stages leads to stronger audience engagement, better stability, and a platform that grows seamlessly with your business.

Challenges in Developing an App Like Amazon Live

When businesses plan to develop a live video shopping app like Amazon Live, one question naturally arises: “What are the biggest video streaming app development challenges, and how do companies overcome them?”

Addressing these challenges early ensures your platform is stable, scalable, and capable of delivering a seamless live shopping experience. 

Below are the most crucial challenges to consider:

• High-Quality, Low-Latency Streaming: Delivering smooth, real-time video without buffering is one of the toughest app development challenges. Achieving this requires a strong CDN network, advanced video compression techniques, and a highly optimized video streaming app tech stack that minimizes delay even during peak loads.

• Real-Time Interactivity: Features such as live chat, instant product pop-ups, polls, and clickable shoppable widgets must function in real time. Creating this level of interactivity demands skilled engineering, powerful servers, and a backend infrastructure that supports millisecond-level communication without lag.

• Scalability During Peak Traffic: Live events may attract thousands or even millions of viewers at the same time. For brands trying to make a custom video shopping app like Amazon Live, handling sudden traffic surges is a major challenge. Auto-scaling, load balancing, and distributed architecture are essential to prevent crashes or slowdowns.

• Secure Payments & Transaction Handling: One key reason why video streaming apps fail is weak payment security. Adding encrypted gateways, SSL, OAuth, and PCI-DSS compliance is essential to protect user data and ensure safe, seamless purchases during live sessions.

• User Experience & Interface Consistency: A confusing interface can drastically reduce conversions. Maintaining a clean, intuitive UI with easy navigation, fast product previews, and smooth transitions is key to keeping users engaged and encouraging purchases throughout the livestream.

By identifying these challenges beforehand and partnering with the right development team, businesses can build a powerful, future-ready live shopping platform that matches the quality, performance, and interactive experience of Amazon Live.

Future Trends to Create an App Like Amazon Live

As the world of e-commerce continues to evolve, keeping up with trends in video streaming apps is essential for anyone looking to build a live video shopping app like Amazon Live. Understanding these trends ensures your platform stays relevant, engaging, and profitable. 

Here are some future trends to consider:

1. Interactive Shoppable Videos

Live streams with clickable product links will become more advanced. Users can buy items instantly during the stream, increasing conversions and creating a seamless shopping experience. Businesses looking to make an app like Amazon Live must integrate these interactive features.

2. AI-Powered Recommendations

Artificial Intelligence will play a bigger role in personalizing product suggestions and content for viewers. By leveraging AI app development services, apps can recommend products based on user behavior, preferences, and purchase history, enhancing engagement, driving sales, and creating a more tailored shopping experience for each user.

3. Multi-Platform Streaming & Integration

Future apps will allow sellers to broadcast across multiple platforms simultaneously, including social media channels. This trend helps expand reach and provides viewers the flexibility to watch and shop from their preferred platform.

4. Gamification & AR/VR Integration

Incorporating gamified experiences and Augmented or Virtual Reality elements will make shopping more immersive. By integrating AR VR in video streaming apps, users can try virtual products, participate in live contests, and engage more deeply, giving your app a competitive edge and creating a next-level interactive shopping experience.

5. Advanced Analytics & Real-Time Insights

Future live video shopping apps will leverage advanced analytics to provide sellers and brands with real-time insights. Metrics like viewer engagement, click-through rates, purchase patterns, and session duration will help businesses optimize content, improve targeting, and increase sales. 

By focusing on these trends and continuously upgrading your app features, businesses can make a custom video shopping app like Amazon Live that attracts and retains users, increases engagement, and drives sales in the evolving live commerce landscape.

Monetization Models for Apps Like Amazon Live

Monetizing a live video shopping platform effectively is key to long-term success. By implementing the right strategies, you can monetize a video streaming app while providing value to users and sellers. 

Here are the main strategies to consider:

• In-App Purchases & Product Sales: The primary source of revenue comes from direct product sales during live streams. By integrating secure payment gateways, users can purchase items instantly, boosting conversion rates. This is ideal for businesses looking to develop a live video shopping app like Amazon Live.

• Subscription Models: Offer premium membership plans for users or sellers with exclusive perks, such as early access to products, ad-free streaming, or advanced analytics for sellers. Subscriptions create a steady revenue stream while providing added value.

• Advertising & Brand Partnerships: Businesses can earn revenue through sponsored content, banner ads, or brand collaborations within the app. Promoting other brands or products allows your platform to capitalize on its audience, enhancing profitability.

• Commission on Sales: Charge a commission or transaction fee for each sale made via the platform. This model is widely used by apps like Amazon Live, ensuring consistent income while enabling sellers to leverage the platform’s user base.

• In-App Gifting & Virtual Currency: Users can send virtual gifts or coins to streamers during live sessions. This monetization model not only generates revenue but also encourages engagement, making the experience interactive and rewarding for both viewers and sellers.

By combining these monetization strategies, businesses can build a live video shopping app like Amazon Live that not only attracts users but also turns engagement into measurable revenue, ensuring the app’s success in a competitive live commerce market.

Build a Live Video Shopping App Like Amazon Live with JPLoft

When it comes to app development, choosing the right partner can make all the difference. JPLoft is a leading video streaming app development company with extensive experience in creating high-quality, interactive, and scalable live video shopping platforms. 

From integrating real-time streaming and secure payment gateways to building a seamless user interface, JPLoft ensures your app delivers an engaging shopping experience similar to Amazon Live. 

Their expert team works closely with clients to develop apps, offering customized solutions that align with your brand’s vision. Whether you want to make a custom app like Amazon Live or launch a new live commerce platform from scratch, JPLoft provides end-to-end support, ensuring your app is feature-rich, reliable, and ready to capture your target audience. 

Final Wrap-Up

Creating a successful live commerce platform requires careful planning, the right features, and a robust tech stack. By choosing to build a live video shopping app like Amazon Live, businesses can engage audiences in real-time, boost sales, and create an interactive shopping experience that stands out. 

From essential app features to a scalable tech stack, every element contributes to the app’s success. Partnering with an experienced development partner ensures your platform is built efficiently, tailored to your needs, and ready to thrive in the competitive world of live commerce. 

Start your journey today and transform the way users shop online with a live video shopping app.