Retailers continue to invest in their mobile app experiences, and the reasons are clear. Mobile commerce spending in the U.S. reached $448 billion in 2023, according to a Comscore report from earlier this year.
Still, not all retailers — even in the Top 1000, Digital Commerce 360’s database of retailers in North America ranked by annual web sales — sell through their own mobile apps. This year, the 2024 Top 1000 Report broke down what share of the highest-performing online merchants do use mobile apps, plus how well those companies performed compared with those that had no apps.
How important are mobile apps for retailers?
First, it was clear that mobile presence was important for traffic. In fact, 69.2% of web visits to the Top 1000 retailers’ websites came from mobile phones and tablets in 2023, based on Digital Commerce 360’s analysis of Similarweb data. That shows that accessibility on these devices is vital for serving shoppers.
For retailers who had their own mobile apps, their median rank in the Top 1000 Database was 209. Compare that with the median rank of retailers without apps, which was 584. In other words, retailers with their own mobile apps sold more online — on average — which in turn helped them rank higher in the database.
Sales growth for retailers with mobile apps
Not only that. Top 1000 retailers with apps saw a higher overall rate of growth than their no-app counterparts. The cohort with apps grew sales 7.4% year over year, compared with 4.2% growth at those retailers without apps.
Granted, those retailers that are already successful have greater resources for developing and maintaining apps. Yet, even so, merchants with apps appear to be staying ahead.
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