Before we delve into this article, it’s important to note that these calculations are based on averaged data and don’t take into account many external factors that could impact results.

For example, Meta have recently made their ads more expensive to run, and therefore, harder to acquire customers. Running ads alongside your app isn’t a necessity, but if your business relies on Meta to interest and acquire new customers, the added expense will mean less customers are coming through, and therefore, lower results.

Equally, every customer's app is different and each business has access to different resources. Those who have a graphic designer, expert copywriter, or choose an app plan with an expert account manager tend to see better results than those who don’t.

You can still get incredible results without those things, this is just to show there are different factors at play, which is why we can’t give definitive results.

Instead of taking this article as gospel, look at it as a guideline for the potential of mobile apps. We’re not saying these results aren’t achievable - they may even be under what’s possible - we’re saying they’re not definitive.

We’ve seen firsthand the power that mobile apps can have:

• 9x more purchases vs. desktop
• 2x average order value in app vs desktop
• 111x return on investment
• $15,000 made in the first week of launch
• $200,000 made in 6 months

All of those results have been achieved by our customers simply by upgrading their mobile website to a mobile app.

So, let’s see what a typical Shopify store could achieve.

‍

How much money a Shopify store could make from a mobile app

Now, we don’t know exactly how much your store is making each month, so let’s set some baseline metrics.

Let’s say you have an average order value of $50, and you make 50 orders a month for a total of $2,500 MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue).

On average, 56% of all e-commerce sales come from a mobile device.

So, using our example store, $1,400 of your monthly revenue is coming from mobile and $1,100 is coming from desktop.

The average mobile conversion rate on Shopify is 1.2%, meaning $1,400 is just 1.2% of what you could be making if all of your mobile traffic turned into a sale (which, sadly, will never happen).

However, mobile apps convert 3x better than mobile websites for a conversion rate of 3.6%. That increases your monthly mobile earnings up by $2,800 for a total of $4,200.

That already sounds pretty good, right?

Well, it gets even better.

We also know that mobile apps drive a 10% higher average order value than mobile websites, so instead of making $50 an order, you’re now making $55 an order.

And with mobile apps converting 3x better than mobile websites, you’re now getting 84 orders a month through mobile - all at a 10% higher average order value.

So, at the start you had an average order value of $50 and were making 50 orders a month for a total of $2,500 MRR.

Now, you have an average order value of $55 on 84 of your orders (from your mobile app), and generating 106 orders a month across all channels.

In total, you’ve gone from $30,000 a year to $68,640 - $55,440 from your mobile app and $13,200 from desktop -  all because your customers were getting a better experience on mobile.

That’s a 229% increase.

Let’s look at it from a purely mobile experience.

‍

Mobile Web vs. Mobile App Sales

Per month, you’re now making $4,620 through your mobile app where your mobile website was making just $1,400. That’s an extra $3,220 a month.

Per year, you’re driving $55,440 a year through your mobile app vs. $16,800 through your mobile website for an extra $36,800.

If you’d have got a mobile app at the start of 2023, you would have already generated an extra $20,000 through mobile app sales alone.

And we know that’s achievable, as one of our customers made more money in the first 5 months of 2023 than they did in the entirety of 2022.

Game changing.

‍

‍

If you want to see exactly how impactful a mobile app can be for Shopify stores, check out one of our customer experiences below.

‍