Mobile Commerce and Loyalty: Why App Customers Spend More

7 min read · Shoppy Academy

A loyal customer spends on average 67% more than a new customer over the same period. Not because they love the brand more — but because they've built a purchasing habit. And that habit lives inside a tool they already use every day. For brands selling on mobile, that tool is the app.

This article explains why customers who use a brand's app buy more frequently, spend more per transaction, and stay customers for longer — with the data to back it up and the concrete mechanics that make it happen.

This article is a satellite of the pillar How to Increase Your Ecommerce Retention. If you want the full strategic picture on customer loyalty, start there.

Why Building Ecommerce Customer Loyalty Works Best Through an App

Mobile web has reached its limit as a loyalty channel. It works for acquisition — it brings traffic, it brings new customers — but it has a structural flaw: every visit starts from zero. The customer has to actively decide to return, open a browser, search for your store. And most of the time, they don't.

With an app, the dynamic flips. The icon is on the home screen. A push notification reminds the customer that something new is available. Access is one tap, not a search. And that difference — seemingly small — completely changes the repurchase dynamic.

The Numbers: What Actually Changes When Customers Use Your App

These aren't theoretical benchmarks. They're metrics observed across real Shopify stores, drawn from independent research.

Together, these four numbers describe something precise: the app channel transforms purchasing behavior, not just the individual order. Customers in the app explore more, add more products to cart, discover more categories. And most importantly, they come back.

The Three Levers That Grow Lifetime Value Through Mobile

1. Push Notifications: The Most Direct Channel There Is

Email has an average open rate of 20-25%. Push notifications have an open rate above 90% (source: Mobiloud 2024). This isn't a comparison — it's a fundamentally different channel with a different dynamic.

A push notification arrives directly on the customer's screen. It doesn't pass through a spam filter, doesn't compete with dozens of other emails in the same inbox. And if it's relevant — personalized for that specific customer, based on their purchase behavior — it has a conversion probability that email can't match.

Push notifications don't build loyalty on their own, of course. But they're the glue that keeps the relationship alive between one purchase and the next. For a deep dive into best practices, read the dedicated article: Push notifications and retention: how to use them without being intrusive.

2. Loyalty and Habits: Repurchase Isn't Bought, It's Built

62% of Italian consumers prefer to shop from stores with an active loyalty program (source: Osservatori Polimi Netcomm 2025). This isn't an aesthetic preference — it's a signal that customers are looking for reasons to return, not just offers.

A loyalty program integrated into the app — points earned with every purchase, unlockable tiers, exclusive rewards for top customers — builds a habit that can't be created via email or website. Because it lives in the same place where the customer already spends their mobile time: inside a dedicated app, with their points balance always visible and updated in real time.

The mechanism is simple: every purchase becomes a reason to reopen the app. Every app reopening is an opportunity to discover new products, receive a relevant push, add something to cart. It's not a linear funnel — it's a self-reinforcing cycle.

3. AOV: Customers Spend More Per Order in the App

The Average Order Value of app customers is structurally higher than the mobile site, for reasons tied to the experience itself. In the app there are fewer distractions, faster loading times, an optimized checkout. But more importantly: there are tools like contextual upsells, suggested bundles, wishlist reminders, and countdown timers for limited-availability products.

• Shopify merchants who launch a native mobile app see on average +20-30% AOV compared to their website (source: Mobiloud aggregated analysis 2024).
• The "Frequently Bought Together" feature in the app drives a further +31% AOV (source: Shopify Partner Data 2023).
• The free shipping threshold, shown persistently in the app, drives 90% of users to add at least one product to reach it (source: Shopify Checkout Studies 2023).

For a complete overview of levers that grow average order value, read the Cluster 3 pillar on ecommerce sales.

What Real Data Says: Two Case Studies

The most significant Nuna Lie data point isn't the individual KPI: it's that one-fifth of their online revenue now comes from a brand-owned channel, with a conversion rate three times the market average. That's exactly what it means to transform mobile from a traffic channel into a proprietary loyalty channel.

Where to Start If You Want to Build Real Mobile Loyalty

Before thinking about tools, clarifying the goal is more useful than any framework. The right question isn't "how do I increase traffic?" — it's "how many of the customers who buy today will return within 90 days?" If the answer is below 25-30%, you have a retention problem, not an acquisition problem.

1. Measure your Repeat Purchase Rate — the percentage of customers who make at least a second purchase. This is the baseline. Without this number, you can't know whether you're improving.
2. Activate a direct mobile channel — a native app is the most effective solution, and today it's accessible even for mid-size stores thanks to no-code tools like Shoppy, which automatically sync the Shopify catalog and manage push notifications, loyalty, and optimized checkout without custom development.
3. Build a push strategy, not just an offer sequence — the pushes that build loyalty are contextual and personalized: a wishlist reminder, a drop update, a post-purchase message. How to manage this sequence is explained in the abandoned cart recovery article.
4. Connect the loyalty program to the app — every point earned, every tier unlocked should be visible in the app in real time. That's what transforms loyalty from a transactional mechanism into a daily habit.

For a complete plan on ecommerce retention — from the metrics to track to the operational levers to activate — the Cluster 2 retention pillar is the most comprehensive starting point.