What is the true value of mobile apps?
Is it useful or even interesting for retailers and fast food brands (QSR) to have a mobile app? The answer might surprise you.
Throughout 2021, InMobi’s mobile intelligence team scoured the data, looking to see if app owners (i.e. people who downloaded a brand’s app on their mobile device) across major retail and QSR categories visited physical storefronts more or less frequently than non-apps. consumer owners. With a significant portion of sales still going on in physical stores, especially in retail, it was worth looking into this link.
Good news if you’ve spent money optimizing and growing your app’s audience: app owners are much more likely to visit a brand’s physical stores than those who haven’t downloaded said app, even during the pandemic, which overall decreased foot traffic.
But before we dive deeper into the findings – why this is the case and what factors are the biggest contributors to app success – let’s first look at how apps have evolved and why this research matters.
Evolution of the application environment
For those of us who were around when the app stores first launched, it seemed like everyone had made an app. It was the cool thing to do and there was seemingly unlimited consumer enthusiasm for downloading and using apps.
Of course, like any bubble, that enthusiasm eventually burst. Companies that released an app for fun saw consumers unsubscribe.
But as the mobile space has matured, apps have captured consumers’ attention with streamlined workflows and ease of use, once again putting them at the top of the heap. In 2022, eMarketer predicts that over 35% of all time spent with media will be spent on mobile, and over 80% of all time spent on mobile is spent on apps.
Yet some retail and QSR brands are hesitant to jump in or invest in their own. Even though time spent on mobile apps has increased dramatically during the pandemic – more than three and a half hours a day are now spent on apps – some QSR retailers and brands believe they can only rely on in-market apps (like Amazon in retail or Uber Eats on the mobile side QSR, for example) to reach today’s mobile consumer.
Why bother investing in both your own app and user acquisition when you can rely on existing operators?
What the study found
It was with these two competing impulses in mind – the growth of app usage versus the difficulty of building and growing your own app – that InMobi embarked on the aforementioned study. Here’s a look at what our 2022 research found:
- Retail app owners visit a brand’s physical stores 37% more frequently than non-app owners.
- Pharmacy app owners visit a brand’s brick-and-mortar stores approximately 27% more frequently than non-app owners.
- Burger QSR app owners visit a brand’s physical stores 39% more frequently than non-app owners.
- Pizza QSR app owners visit a brand’s physical stores 17% more frequently than non-app owners.
Why is this uprising so remarkable? It reveals that app owners are more loyal, which is critical in a time of declining brand loyalty. And since sales still largely take place in person (more than 80% of all retail sales take place in physical stores, according to eMarketer), it’s still extremely important for marketers to be able to drive foot traffic. .
However, for all the value apps can bring to increasing foot traffic, overall awareness and adoption remain low. According to a subsequent survey conducted through InMobi Pulse, our mobile market research solution, app awareness and adoption is still low in the QSR and retail spaces.
