November 26, 2025
Turns Out People Buy More When Apps Aren’t Terrible
Retailers spend millions attracting shoppers to their apps every year. But little do they know that the real difference between a one-off transaction and a loyal customer is much simpler: make the app experience good, and people buy more. A lot more.
Airship’s new Experience Impact study reveals that shoppers exposed to high-quality, no-code native app experiences purchase 140% more frequently than those left to fend for themselves in clunky or generic app journeys. Great in-app experiences are worth more than any peak-season acquisition spike.
The data comes from analysing over 1,000 in-app retail experiences and 1.7 billion sessions. Brands can unlock this uplift quite quickly by employing simple, no-code and AI-powered tools that marketers can adjust on the fly.
Preferences and Personalisation
When retailers use onboarding journeys, preference prompts or personalised in-app offers, conversion rates multiply. Customers who see special offer experiences are twice as likely to convert. Preference-collection experiences deliver a 179% uplift. Even small nudges, like asking customers to update their app, translate into a 232% boost. Moreover, when apps successfully encourage users to opt in to push notifications, purchase conversion jumps an enormous 432%.
Despite this, many brands continue to squander their strongest acquisition moment, that is, Black Friday. It has been the biggest day for shopping app installs for more than a decade, yet most retailers treat these new users like everyone else. By Christmas, the advantage evaporates. Engagement drops, retention collapses, and the customer who arrived full of holiday intent fades away.
Since 63% of shoppers plan to do most of their buying around Thanksgiving weekend, brands need to keep them coming back. Acquisition is expensive, but loyalty is where profitability starts.
“Cyber Week provides the attention, but profitable growth only materialises when brands convert those first purchases into durable, long-term customer relationships,” said Maria Robinson, CMO, Airship.
The problem, Airship says, is operational. Marketers understand what needs to improve inside the app, but they often depend on developer bandwidth to make any changes. As a result, onboarding, preference collection and testing are slow, exactly the areas that drive retention.
In short, customers reward brands that take their app experience seriously.
