7 Ways to Improve User Engagement in Your Shopify Mobile App

When was the last time you used a newly installed mobile application regularly? Maybe a few weeks or months ago. Why?

According to a leading report about app installs & their utilization, around 65% of customers who install a mobile app stop using it in the first month. About 25% of the users continue to use the app regularly or sporadically in a three-month period. Only 2-5% of these people stick to a particular mobile app & the same principle applies to a Shopify Mobile Application.

So, is there anything that you can do to improve customer engagement in your eCommerce mobile app? Read on to find out!

7 Ways to Improve User Engagement in Shopify Mobile App

1. Take Advantage of App Onboarding

Remember this: Get Customers Hooked to Your App in the first 3-7 days period!

Why should you remember this?

Customers tend to try out a lot of eCommerce mobile applications & your Shopify Mobile App is just an app that people come across daily. Most people decide whether to continue or stop using a mobile app in the initial 3-to-7-day timeframe. For decent eCommerce mobile applications, the retention period tends to be more than 7 days.

So, how can you change the onboarding experience of your Shopify Mobile App to improve user engagement?

• Make Sure to Highlight Your App’s Value – As soon as a user starts with the sign-up process, don’t just simply bombard them with all the features of your mobile application. Instead, focus on the strong points – features that will benefit the users. You can leave the less important features for future updates.
• Respect the User’s Time – People are busy with a myriad of works. So, they won’t give your app much attention. If you drag them through text-heavy screens, chances are that they will simply uninstall your mobile app. Instead, leverage drawings, illustrations or screenshots to highlight your products or features.
• Provide a Simple Walkthrough – You can incorporate a series of steps that will take the user through the main features of your mobile application. You can also add a progress bar to make the walkthrough interactive.
• Make to End with a Call-to-Action – You can notify your customers to join your loyalty program or offer a special one-time discount & nudge the user to purchase your products.

2. Make Sure that the Account Creation & Sign in Process is Simple

Many eCommerce businesses are offering Social Sign-ins, Guest Checkout & other signup features to speed up the process of account creation. Why?

Customers want to know the value that your mobile app offers. So, instead of making them go through the hassle of entering all their personal information, you can incorporate Social Sign-in (Facebook, Instagram), Guest Account or signup with Mobile Number or Email Id.

Once the customer browses your Shopify Mobile App to their heart’s content & wants to purchase a product then you can ask them to fill in additional details like Shipping Details, Contact Number, Debit/Credit Card Details & more.

3. Send Relevant Push Notifications

Leading studies suggest that customers who opt for push notifications demonstrate an increase of more than 30% in terms of mobile app retention.

But, that’s just one side of the coin. Many users also think that push notifications irritate them. Why? Many times, these notifications tend to be irrelevant. 

So, how do you send personalized/relevant push notifications? 

• Leverage profile information of your customers (location, weather etc.)
• Make the most of customer analytics (product viewing times, purchasing behavior, etc.)

You can easily customize the title & description of your push notification as per your business needs & analytics. Apart from that, you can also add an image of your product to entice the user into clicking on the notification.

The Result – Enhanced User Engagement!

4. Leverage In-App Messages to Improve User Engagement

In-App Messages are different from Push Notifications. How?

You’ll most receive push notifications on the notification bar or home screen. However, in-app messages literally mean sending messages when a customer is using your Shopify Mobile App. So, what’s the big deal? Can’t I simply use push notifications instead?

Leading studies & reports state that you can achieve up to 4x customer retention & around 30% more app launches. Does this mean push notifications are bad? Not at all! You can still make the most of push notifications to alert users about cart abandonment or give information after checkout is done.

Coming back to In-app messages, these small yet effective nuggets can be triggered after a specific activity like adding a product into favorites or making a purchase. You can also use it to notify customers about an upcoming sale or a drop in the price of their favorite product.

But keep one thing in mind: In-App Messages have to be organic! Don’t send some half-baked messages because they might simply annoy the customer.

5. Incorporate Mobile Deep Linking

To put it simply, mobile deep linking generally involves using specialized links that take the user to a specific page – product page, offer page or a one-time discount page.

So, all you need to do is send these lucrative links via push notifications or in-app messages to capture the user’s attention. As soon as they see an alert of their mobile app, they will most probably click on it (only if you have used attractive content) & go directly to a specific page.

If the customers like what they see then they will either purchase the product or even go the extra mile to share about the product with their friends, colleagues or relatives – Improved User Engagement for your app!

6. Trigger Location-based App Recommendations

Smartphones can be regarded as a boon for most businesses including eCommerce ventures like an alluring Shopify Store.

With the help of the location feature, you can easily send notifications asking customers to buy certain products i.e., if your store offers warm clothes, then you can send a notification or an in-app message telling customers to get warm outfits if they are in a cold region.  With effective location-based recommendations, you can seamlessly Improve User Engagement for your mobile.

7. Make the Most of Customer Analytics

Customer analytics generally include product viewing times, online store sessions, returning customers, favorite products, most purchased products & other analytical data.

You can easily take advantage of this data to trigger notifications, in-app messages, special sales, one-time discounts (to new or returning customers) & do many more activities that will generate huge customer interest. This will enable you to seamlessly improve customer engagement.

These are 7 ways to Improve User Engagement in Your Shopify Mobile App. Want to build a Shopify Mobile Application? Why not head over to Storifi? It offers powerful features like Drag & Drop, Real-Time Preview, Unlimited Editing & more!