86% of users quit shopping apps after 4 weeks: CleverTap's research analysis

CleverTap, the full-stack customer retention platform that helps consumer brands maximize customer lifetime value, has released its  Industry Benchmarks for Ecommerce Apps .

The report's market study indicates that for e-commerce brands, high customer acquisition costs (CACs) and price-sensitive buyers impact the overall customer lifetime value and profitability due to low retention. With low entry and exit barriers, customers have a plethora of options to choose from even within niche categories.

The benchmark report, which analyzed 3.1 billion data points across 18 million devices and 15 million unique users, provides insights that will help growth teams benchmark their app's performance against some of the most successful e-commerce apps. The report, according to CleverTap, also covers strategies to help improve user engagement and retention.

Almitra Karnik, Head of Marketing at CleverTap said, "The cut-throat competition in the e-commerce industry makes it crucial for brands to deliver a superior customer experience. Our research indicates that e-commerce brands are losing customers faster than acquiring them. On average, shopping apps lose 86% of users within the first 4 weeks of download."

"Without focusing on retention, brands are trying to fill a leaky bucket, focusing on acquiring more users that don't stick around for long. This impacts the top line as well as customer lifetime value for these brands," she added.

The benchmark report has provided insights on how users flow from one lifecycle stage to another and provides recommendations to increase repeat purchase rate and hence user retention. Some of the other highlights from the report include:

• Registration: Only 16 percent of new users complete the signup process within a week of installing the app
• Retention: Only 11.6 percent of new users remain active in the first week
• Uninstalls: 42 percent of new users uninstall the app within the 30 days of app install
• Reinstalls: Only 5.21 percent of users reinstall within 30 days of app uninstall