App Commerce News – January 2020

It’s official, we’re in the 2020’s. The decade of mobile is behind us, but what could the 2020’s bring for retail as we know it today? This month we take a look at how mobile has shaped today’s shopping experiences and look to how app commerce looks to evolve over the coming years.

The 2010’s:

The 2010’s were a big decade for mobile. We saw the App Store turn 10 years old and smartphones dominate how we communicate with each other, how we spend our digital time and how we shop.

What has this meant for the last decade?

Shopping apps came into bloom in 2019, with demand for apps higher than ever before

The role shopping apps play in in-store experiences has grown. As many as 88% of consumers now use mobile retail apps while shopping in-store.

App Annie found in their ‘State of Mobile 2020’ Report: 

• 5.4bn shopping apps downloaded in 2019
• 3.7hrs spent on mobile per day by the average user
• 825% higher avg IPO valuation for mobile companies in 2019 
• A strong correlation (r-value of 0.94) between time spent in app and revenue (online & in-store)

App Marketing

With the development of apps came app marketing. There was only a small uptake in app marketing in 2014, according to AppsFlyer, however, by 2019, app marketing drove over a third of app installs vs 66% organic downloads.

Looking to 2020 and the decade ahead

2020 is the year of the app, here’s why apps are so important:

Mobile will continue to grow. As mobile commerce grows, smartphone and tablets sales are expected to account for half of all online sales in 2020 according to Emarketer, who predicts a growth of 15.3% for mcommerce. Additionally, UK store revenues are set to decline by a further 0.9% in 2020, meanwhile, overallecommerce is predicted to grow 8.9%.

Millennials & Gen Z. As Millennial and Gen Z start to mature they are most definitely the ones to watch. Together these generations are predicted to have over $1 trillion in buying power in 2020, which will only continue to grow throughout the 2020’s. 

5G. The price of 5G compatible smartphones will drop over 2020 and in the next few years as the infrastructure to support 5G grows and the competitive market drives prices down in order to increase adoption according to Gartner. We anticipate retailers will leverage this to improve the connectivity between in-store and online customer experiences through apps and newer technologies like voice and AR.

Cashless shopping. The demise of cash has been stunted. New York joins the list of the latest of the US states to ban cashless stores and demand that all stores must accept physical currency. The government’s thinking behind this is to prevent the discrimination of lower-income shoppers who might not have access to bank accounts, other cashless alternatives or smartphones. This will obviously impact Amazon’s famous Amazon Go stores where shoppers can shop in-store with their apps and checkout on their phones.

New Year, New App?

We’ve put together 5 top tips for marketing your new app and building your highly engaged audience