Should you turn your Shopify store into a mobile app?

The short answer

If your customers buy from you more than once, an app is worth a serious look. If most people buy one product and never come back, put the money into your website and ads first.

An app does not replace your store. It sits on top of it, using the same products, prices, stock and orders, and gives your best customers a faster way back.

What an app does that your website cannot

Push notifications

This is the main reason stores go mobile. A push notification lands on the customer's lock screen, with no inbox to get lost in. A new collection, a restock of something they wanted, or an abandoned cart reminder reaches them directly.

Used carefully, it is one of the cheapest ways to bring people back. Used too often, it gets the app deleted. One or two useful messages a week is a sensible ceiling for most shops.

Faster checkout

Customers who are logged in, with their address and payment saved, can buy in a couple of taps. On a mobile website they often have to log in again, or they abandon the checkout halfway.

A spot on the home screen

Your icon sits next to the apps they use every day. That constant, quiet reminder is hard to buy any other way.

Your website wins new customers. Your app keeps the ones you already have.

When an app is a good idea

An app usually pays off when most of these are true:

• Customers reorder. Beauty, fashion, food, supplements, pet supplies and other consumables are natural fits.
• You already have steady traffic. An app amplifies existing demand. It does not create it from nothing.
• You release new products or drops regularly. Each release is a reason to send a notification.
• A good share of your sales already come from phones. Check your Shopify analytics before you decide.

When to wait

Hold off if you sell mostly one-off, high-ticket items, if your store is very new, or if your website is still slow or hard to use on a phone. Fix the website first. An app built on a weak store inherits its problems.

What the conversion involves

Turning a Shopify store into an app does not mean rebuilding your shop. The app connects to Shopify, so products, collections, prices, stock and orders stay in sync automatically.

The work is mostly in these steps:

1. Design: the home screen, navigation and product pages, styled to your brand.
2. Connection: linking the app to your Shopify store and checkout.
3. Notifications: setting up push messages, including automatic ones like abandoned carts.
4. Testing: on real Android and iPhone devices, not just a simulator.
5. Publishing: preparing store listings, screenshots and descriptions, and submitting to Google Play and the App Store.

Getting people to download it

Building the app is half the job. Tell customers why they should install it: early access to new products, an app-only discount on the first order, or faster reorders. Put the message on your website, in order confirmation emails and on your packaging.

Next step

If you are on Shopify and your customers come back to buy again, an app is one of the strongest upgrades you can make. See our Shopify to app package, or read more about our app development.