3 easy ways to retain customers on your mobile app

So you’ve launched your mobile commerce app, got your first spike of users, and now you’ve got a steady trickle of customers. But how engaged are they?

It’s crucial that you encourage people to regularly open up the app. You want them to keep it on their phone, browsing through it at idle moments, and buying products.

This is a big topic, but here are three things to think about when it comes to retaining your mobile app customers and discouraging a high churn rate:

1. Make sure you have your full range of products on your app:

According to our research, one key concern for app downloaders is that they will only be able to browse a limited range of products. Your customers want to see everything, so make sure they’re not missing out.

This will be easier if you have an app that automatically syncs with the products on your website. At Poq, we achieve this using product feeds, but there are alternative ways, so quiz your developer on how they plan to integrate.

2. Target users with push notifications:

Push notifications are one of the key advantages of having an app, so make sure you’re taking full advantage!

Once a week is a good rough guideline for how often you should send out messages to your users. Make them useful and short. They’re a great way to highlight new products, sales, special offers, discounts, or exciting news.

See here for our top tips on writing push notifications, with examples from fashion brands.

3. Include engaging content:

Your app needs to be very easy to browse and buy from. But underneath that simple functionality, think about adding a layer of editorial content to engage users.

Look at how Net-A-Porter do it on their main website – the buying process is smooth and products are beautifully presented, but they have their magazine ‘The Edit’ easily available for customers who want to spend a little longer and get some inspiration.

Consider adding features like lookbooks, blog posts, news, and styling advice as a way to persuade customers to keep going back to your app. What will keep them engaged? Test different content and see what works.

Mobile apps as a customer retention tool

For ecommerce apps, you need to accept that some downloaders will never actually buy a product on the app. Instead, the app is a key stage in their customer journey, leading them to purchase in-store or on your retail website. So keeping them coming back is vital.

We hope this post is useful! If you have any other tips, we’d love to hear from you.