Wondering how your app is performing against others in your industry? Look no further! In this cheat sheet, we’ve provided benchmarks for the eCommerce & Retail vertical based on our database of more than 37,000 apps. We’ve focused on benchmark data around several key metrics — app engagement, user retention and the impact of a mobile marketing strategy. The data is based on app usage in Q4 2015.

General App Stats

Use these stats to help define your mobile strategy’s focus – should you be focusing on Android or iOS, or on the smaller screen of a phone versus the large screen of a tablet?

App Engagement

App Launches	Session Length	Time In App
Average number of times an individual app is launched per month.	Average time spent in an individual app across all sessions per month.	Total amount of time spent in apps throughout the month.
17.5 launches per month	2.85 minutes per month	51.02 minutes per month

User Retention

Average Three Month User Retention and Churn

Retention measures the percent of users who return to an app one month, two months, and three months after the app is downloaded. Churn is the opposite; it measures the percentage of people who do not return to an app one month, two months, and three months after download.

According to our data, 37% of users are still using eCommerce & Retail apps one month after they downloaded it, meaning 63% of users have churned and are no longer using the app one month after they downloaded it.

 

Three Month User Retention & Churn

Average for eCommerce & Retail Apps

Average User Retention by # of Sessions

User retention can also be measured by number of sessions. The more sessions a user has, the more likely they are to become a loyal user.

21% of users only use eCommerce & Retail apps once, while 38% of users return to the app for 11 or more sessions.

Marketing Stats

Push Notifications	10.3%
In-App Messages	19.4%

 

Average Number of App Launches for Users who Enabled Push vs. Those Who Don’t:

App launches measures the average number of times a user visits an eCommerce & Retail App. In this version, we’re comparing users who have enabled, or opted in, to push notifications versus those who have opted out of push.

eCommerce & Retail app users who have push enabled average 13.6 app launches, while users who have push disabled only average 4.1 app launches.

 

Average App Launches for Push Enabled vs. Push Disabled Users

Average for eCommerce & Retail Apps

Average Three Month Retention for Users who Enable Push vs. Those Who Don’t:

Retention measures the amount of users who return to an eCommerce & Retail app one month, two months, and three months after they downloaded the app. In this version, we’re comparing users who have push notifications enabled versus those who have disabled push.

43% of push-enabled users return to the app one month after they downloaded it, while only 9% of users who did not have push notifications enabled returned in the same time period. By the third month after download, 16% of push enabled users are still using the app, while only 4% of users who have disabled push are still using the app.

 

3 Month Retention for Push Enabled vs. Push Disabled Users

Average for eCommerce & Retail Apps

Number of Sessions for Users who Enable Push vs. Those Who Don’t

Another way to measure the effectiveness of push notifications is to see how many sessions users with push enabled log in eCommerce & Retail apps compared to users who have push disabled. This measurement shows that the majority of users who do not have push enabled will only visit an app once. While users who do have push enabled are more likely to visit an app upwards of 11 times.

60% of users who have opted-out of push will only visit an app once. While only 13% of push-enabled users will visit an app once, meaning more users with push enabled will return to the app.

In the long term, 49% of users who have opted-in to push visit an app 11 times, while only 13% of users who don’t receive push notifications used the app 11 times.

 

Number of Sessions for Push Enabled vs. Push Disabled Users

Average for eCommerce & Retail Apps

Top 5 Acquisition Channels

These channels bring in the most users for eCommerce & Retail apps:

• Organic Channels
• Facebook
• Glispa
• Appier
• Mobvista

Localytics is the leading mobile engagement platform across more than 2.7 billion devices and 37,000 mobile and web apps. The timeframe for this data is Q4 2015.