"Retailers need to think beyond getting consumers to download their app and get them to make an in-​app purchase quickly, according to two new studies. Retail app shoppers are loyal. But getting a consumer to that point — downloading the app and making frequent purchases — is no small feat."

"Two recent studies from app commerce company Poq and mobile app marketing vendor Jampp illustrate the challenges retailers have with app customer acquisition and retention," April Berthene wrote for Internet Retailer.

The average consumer opens a retailer’s app 23 times in the first month after downloading it, 14 times in the second month and three times in the third month, according to Poq’s “App Retention Report.”

This is good news for retailers, artists and service providers with shops on Etsy. AudienceSCAN survey results report Smartphone App Purchasers are 137% more likely than average consumers to shop on Etsy.

If a consumer is still using the app she downloaded after two weeks, she is likely to become a longtime user of the app, according to the report. And making a purchase will only help app retention. Shoppers who make at least one purchase in a retail app are 1.9‑times more likely to keep the app on their smartphone than the average user of that app. "This means retailers should work to drive a consumer to make that first purchase quickly in order to keep her from abandoning the app," Berthene said.

Small businesses should consider creating shopping apps for their stores. The AudienceSCAN study found 55.2% of Smartphone App Purchasers prefer to buy from small, family-​owned or independently owned businesses if price and product quality are similar.

Prompting a consumer to buy quickly, however, could be difficult as retail apps have a long lag period from when the consumer downloads the app to when she purchases, according to the Jampp study, “Consumer Behavior on E‑commerce Mobile Apps.” Jampp collected iOS and Android data from more than 200 clients that advertised on its platform during the first quarter. Jampp included taxi, food delivery, classified, travel and fashion apps in the report.

For fashion apps, 35% of first conversions occur on the install date, while less than 10% of first conversions are made the day after the install. 70% of conversions happen within 14 days and 90% of first conversions occur within 31 days. With taxi apps, for example, 70% of first conversions happen on the install date, while 70% of first conversions for food delivery apps happen in three days, and travel apps hit the 70% mark within eight days.

Clothing stores should know 16% of Smartphone App Purchasers plan to buy business suits in the next 12 months, according to AudienceSCAN data. And 23.5% of Smartphone App Purchasers got a taxi, Uber, Lyft or other ground transportation from their mobile devices in the past 6 months.

"To push shoppers to make a purchase, retailers should offer an app-​only incentive to consumers who make a purchase in the app," Andrew Lipsman, vice president of marketing and insights at comScore Inc. says.

AudienceSCAN data is available as part of a subscription to AdMall for Agencies, or with the SalesFuel API. Media companies can access AudienceSCAN data through the AudienceSCAN Reports in AdMall.