If you’re looking to increase your sales, improve your customer experience, and multiply your average order value, then you need a mobile app for your Shopify store.

In this article, we'll cover everything you need to know about Shopify mobile apps, including:

• The benefits mobile apps over mobile websites
• How to create a mobile app using a Shopify app builder
• The results you can expect to see after just one month.

What are the benefits of mobile apps for Shopify stores?

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Mobile apps are becoming increasingly popular for small and medium sized businesses in 2023/2024, and for good reason.

For Shopify users, they’re more accessible than ever thanks to no-code mobile app builders and lower price points.

When mobile apps first hit the scene, you’d need thousands of dollars to hire expert developers in order to create an effective e-commerce app, but now, you can create your own app without any help for under $100.

Here’s why you should get a mobile app for your Shopify store:

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Mobile apps offer an enhanced user experience

The first benefit of using a Shopify mobile app builder like StoreLab is that they offer a more intuitive and user-friendly experience over mobile websites, which can often take a while to load.

To illustrate, an e-commerce website that loads in 1 second has a 3x greater conversion rate than a site that loads in 5 seconds, and on average, a mobile website loads in 15.3 seconds, resulting in a lot of missed sales.

On the other hand, mobile apps load instantly, leading to higher engagement rates, longer session times, and increased customer satisfaction.

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Mobile apps allow you to send push notifications

Do you struggle to communicate with your customers? Shopify mobile apps allow you to send push notifications directly to your customers' mobile screens for more effective customer messaging.

One of the core benefits that small businesses have seen from push notifications is that their customers actually receive their message! Often, it can be a struggle to get your messages out to your audience, thanks to spam filters, low open rates, and inboxes that are never checked.

With 10x greater open rates vs. email and no worry about spam filters, push notifications are the perfect way to ensure your customers are actually reading what you want them to read.

In addition, having a mobile app for your Shopify store is one of the most effective marketing channels for increasing sales, as they convert 15x greater than email and 9x greater than SMS.

Push notifications from your businesses’ mobile app can even be personalised toward each individual customer. For example, if a customer adds something to their cart but doesn’t make the purchase, you can send an automatic notification to their phone encouraging them to buy the product they have left behind or forgotten about. This is especially helpful during your Shopify Black Friday Cyber Monday sales.

Or, if your customer has looked at a particular set of products for an extended period of time, you can also send a custom notification highlighting the most popular items from that exact set, as well as offering them a one-off discount to push them to purchase.

Oh, and mobile push notifications are completely free to send, so there’s no worry about trying to make your money back, or work out a suitable return on investment.

Learn more about how you can use push notifications to boost your sales in the article, 5 Reasons Why Mobile Push Notifications are Every Shopify Merchant's Dream.

The Benefits of Mobile Apps over Mobile Websites

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One of the most common questions when it comes to creating a mobile app is: “isn’t my mobile-optimised website good enough?”

Well, whilst having a website that is optimised for mobile, as well as desktop, is still important for any e-commerce business, Shopify mobile apps offer a number of benefits that websites simply cannot match. These benefits of mobile apps over mobile websites include;

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Faster loading times

Mobile apps are designed to be fast and responsive, which means they load much more quickly than websites. This can be particularly important for mobile users who may have slower internet connections.

The average time for a mobile web page to load is 15.3 seconds. However, a study by Google states that 53% of visits are abandoned if a website takes longer than 3 seconds to load. So if you don't have a mobile app for your Shopify store (which will load instantly), you are losing out on a lot of visitors, customers, and sales.

Personalisation

A mobile app for your Shopify store can be personalised to each user's preferences, which means you can provide a more tailored shopping experience. This can help to build brand loyalty and increase customer retention.

Improved user experience

Mobile websites are a compromised version of your desktop website, meaning they’re not designed specifically for the mobile experience. On the other hand, mobile apps exist purely to give your customers the best experience possible of your Shopify store on their phone or tablet.

Find out more about the benefits of mobile apps over mobile websites in the article, Are Mobile Apps Better Than Mobile Websites for Shopify Stores?.

How to Create a Mobile App for Your Shopify Store:

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1. Go to the Shopify App Store and search for the StoreLab Mobile App Builder
2. Install the StoreLab app and follow the on-screen instructions to set up your account
3. Customise your mobile app by adding your branding, products, and other features
4. Publish your app to the app store and start promoting it to your customers
5. Enjoy the results!

Alternatively, you can book a free discovery call with a member of the StoreLab team to learn more about the benefits creating a mobile app for your Shopify store will have for your business.