Does Your Brand Need a Mobile App?

Mobile commerce has exploded in recent years, with more consumers shopping on their smartphones than ever before.

For DTC brands, this raises the big question: do you need a mobile app?

Many brands assume that an optimized mobile website is sufficient. Why go through the hassle and expense of developing an app when your website already converts well?

However, the brands that lean into mobile apps aren’t just surviving—they’re thriving. Apps offer a direct line to customers, better retention, and higher LTV compared to brands that are web-only.

Now, with CAC rising and profit margins shrinking, it’s becoming more important than ever to build sustainable growth through retention, and mobile apps are the perfect way to do this.

Yet not all brands need an app. For some, a mobile app just won’t move the needle enough to justify the time, cost and energy you put into building and launching it.

Keep reading and we’ll explain which brands should (and shouldn’t) build an app, and a clear action plan to launch for those who do have an app on their to-do list.

Want weekly insights into how 7, 8 and 9-figure brands are driving sustainable growth? That's what you get with our value-packed newsletter, The Retention Edge. Subscribe for free today.

Which Brands Benefit the Most from a Mobile App?

Not every DTC brand needs a mobile app.

However, for some, it’s a game-changer for retention, repeat purchases, and community engagement.

The key? Brands who derive a significant amount of revenue from repeat purchases, and those with a long customer lifecycle.

If you fall into any of these categories, an app could be a massive retention and revenue driver:

High-Frequency Purchase Brands

Brands selling products that customers repurchase frequently (like supplements, cosmetics, coffee, or pet food) can benefit a ton from an app.
With one-tap reordering, personalized recommendations, and subscription management, an app makes repurchasing frictionless.

Subscription-Based Businesses

If your business runs on a recurring revenue model (meal kits, memberships, or replenishment services), an app is perfect for managing subscriptions.
Customers can easily pause, modify, or upgrade their subscriptions, reducing churn and increasing LTV.

Loyalty-Driven Brands

Fashion, luxury, and community-centric brands thrive on engagement. A mobile app allows you to offer:
- Exclusive member perks
- Early access to new collections
- Personalized content and offers

Brands with Customization & Personalization

Skincare, footwear, and home decor brands that offer customized products benefit from an app’s ability to store customer preferences and deliver a tailored shopping experience.

Experience-Driven Brands

Some brands go beyond selling products—they create immersive experiences through apps with gamification, AR/VR try-ons, or community-building features.
If your brand thrives on exclusivity or VIP experiences, an app strengthens customer loyalty.

When a Mobile App Does NOT Make Sense

Mobile apps can have huge benefits for some brands. But for others, an app won’t move the needle very much.

We’re basically looking at the inverse of the previous section. Brands that have a naturally low retention rate, where customers typically only purchase once (or with a long time between purchases).

Think; what’s the reason for customers to download your app? Does it provide value, or improve the customer experience?

A furniture brand, for example, doesn’t make a lot of sense to build an app. Someone might buy once (a $3,000 sofa). Do they need an app, or does this just add another unnecessary step to the buying process?

A great example would be Ridge. They’re immensely successful, doing $100M+ in revenue.

It’s not a matter of cost; they can certainly afford an app.

But, (by CEO Sean Frank’s own admission), they’re a naturally low-LTV business. They don’t sell consumables; in fact their wallets are specifically designed to last FOREVER (they even offer a lifetime guarantee).

So people aren’t going to download an app and make regular purchases (though that may change as they expand to new product lines).

For them, an app just doesn’t add much to the customer experience.

Why Brands With a Great Mobile Web Experience Should Launch Apps

A common objection to building a mobile app is when brands already have a high-converting and engaging mobile website.

They believe that the website is enough; an app would be redundant.

However, it makes even more sense for brands with a great mobile web experience to launch a mobile app.

Your website is proof of concept; your customers are happy shopping on mobile.

An app just takes that and packages it in a more convenient format.

Your loyal customers will be able to load the site (now your app) via one tap from their home screen, rather than accessing it through the browser, and you can drive increased engagement with push notifications.

Some will still prefer to use the website, and that’s fine. Those who prefer the convenience of the app will use the app.

Typically 2-5% of your web users will download your app, which is more than enough (with the higher LTV from app users) to justify the cost.

And if your mobile web experience is already app-like, you’re in the perfect position to launch an app. Using a service like MobiLoud you’ll be able to launch in no time, just by converting what already works well for you on the web.

A great mobile web experience transitions perfectly into a great mobile app

The Retention & LTV Boost: Why Retail Apps Work

Why build a mobile app?

A mobile app isn’t just another sales channel. It’s a retention engine.

While most brands obsess over customer acquisition, sustainable profitability in DTC comes from repeat purchases and maximizing lifetime value.

A well-executed mobile app creates a sticky ecosystem where customers return not just out of necessity but because they’re engaged in the brand experience.

Here’s why apps are one of the most effective tools for retention and LTV growth:

1. Push Notifications & Retargeting

One of the biggest challenges in retention marketing is staying top of mind without being ignored.

Email open rates have dropped to around 20%, and SMS is seeing declining engagement (and is much more expensive at scale).

Enter push notifications: they have an average open rate of 90% and offer a direct, non-intrusive way to nudge customers back into your ecosystem.

With push, brands can send hyper-targeted messages based on customer behavior, purchase history, and browsing activity, such as abandoned cart notifications and automated re-ordering reminders for consumables.

2. Frictionless Shopping

Apps provide less friction and fewer distractions, making for a smoother and higher-converting shopping experience (even if the app is just a wrapped version of the website).

It’s quicker to get in (one tap from the home screen), the customer is already signed in, and there are no browser tabs to distract them.

The result is higher conversions, fewer abandoned carts, and a more inviting experience for regular customers.

3. Loyalty & Rewards Integration: Keeping Customers Engaged

A mobile app allows brands to bake loyalty directly into the shopping experience, boosting participation and engagement.

With an app, loyalty members can track their points in real time, receive personalized offers based on their tier status, get push updates when they earn points, and redeem rewards instantly (without needing to log in or navigate a separate loyalty dashboard).

It makes earning and using rewards feel effortless, which increases repeat purchase rates and brand affinity.

4. Exclusive Access & VIP Treatment: Driving FOMO & Retention

Your best customers crave exclusivity. Mobile apps give brands the ability to offer premium, members-only experiences that drive app adoption and keep users engaged long-term.

Brands like Nike and Adidas use their apps to drop exclusive, limited-edition releases that are only accessible to app users.

Beauty brands often offer early access to new collections, while premium fashion labels provide app-only discounts or invitation-only shopping events.

These perks drive engagement, as well as creating a strong incentive for customers to keep the app installed (and push notifications turned on).

5. Better Data for Personalization: Using Customer Insights to Drive More Revenue

With third-party cookie tracking becoming more restricted, owning your customer data is more valuable than ever.

A mobile app gives you direct insights into browsing behavior, purchase frequency, product preferences, and engagement patterns, allowing for hyper-personalized marketing.

For example, an app can track:

Which products a customer views but doesn’t buy
How frequently they engage with the brand
Their most common purchase categories
Their preferred time of day for shopping

Armed with this data, brands can deliver personalized recommendations, send perfectly timed promotions, and optimize marketing efforts for each individual customer.

How to Build & Scale a Mobile App That Converts

Another objection many brands have is that they see a mobile app as a big, expensive, time-consuming project.

It’s a “nice to have”, but with all the other fires going on around the business, it’s just never the right time.

It’s actually not that big a project anymore, with the no-code and low-code tools on the market. It won’t cost you six figures+ like legacy shopping apps, and you can go live in a matter of weeks, without hiring and managing developers.

Here’s a five-step process to building (and scaling) your brand’s mobile app:

Prioritize your mobile web UX – building your mobile app will be so much easier if your mobile website is already amazing (and you’ll get more visitors on the mobile web anyway).
Use MobiLoud to turn your website into a native app in just four weeks (without coding, and without rebuilding anything).
Launch and promote your app using existing retention channels, such as your email list, SMS list and website.
Set up automated push campaigns (abandoned cart, browse abandonment, welcome messages), as well as sending regular (multiple times per week) engagement-driving push notifications.
Test, analyze and iterate – track engagement, try different campaigns (such as app-exclusive product drops) to get more of your customers to download the app.

Today, any brand can launch their own app – it doesn’t take millions in funding or an in-house development team to build an app.

Want to learn more? Get a free consultation and learn how MobiLoud will bring your app to life.

Measuring Success: What Metrics Matter?

With the right measurement frameworks, you can ensure you see your app's contribution to business growth.

Several key metrics to look for include:

App Install Rate & Active Users – Are people downloading and staying engaged?
Conversion Lift vs. Mobile Web – Does the app outperform your website in checkout conversion?
Push Notification Open & Conversion Rates – Are notifications driving action?
Repeat Purchase Rate & LTV Lift – Are customers buying more frequently through the app?
App-Exclusive Revenue Contribution – How much revenue is coming directly from app users?

Case Studies: DTC Brands Winning with Mobile Apps

There are many public examples of DTC brands launching apps and achieving success.

Sleefs

Category: Apparel/Fashion

Key statistics:

30% higher AOV in-app – Bigger baskets, higher spend.
3x more visits per app user – More engagement, more sales.
+40% conversion rate – Higher intent, fewer abandoned carts.
50k+ push notification subscribers – Direct access to high-value customers.

Sleefs' mobile app is a retention and revenue powerhouse.

App users spend more, shop more often, and convert at higher rates than any other platform.

With push notifications giving them instant access to 50k+ engaged customers, Sleefs has built a direct, high-intent sales loop that keeps revenue flowing.

Boozebud

Category: Alcohol

Key statistics:

5x higher customer lifetime value – App users stick around and keep spending.
4x higher ARPU – More revenue per user, more profitability.
10% of total revenue from the app – A major revenue driver.

Boozebud’s app isn’t just boosting sales. It’s locking in high-value customers.

With 5x the LTV and 4x the ARPU of non-app users, the app creates a sticky, high-engagement shopping experience that drives repeat purchases.

The result? A direct, high-retention revenue stream that now accounts for 10% of total sales.

“We're seeing that the customers who do use the app are more engaged, they're spending more time on site, they're spending more per transaction, they're spending more overall. Push notifications give us a way to get in front of high-value customers within a walled environment. The app is paying for itself.”

BrüMate

Category: Home/Kitchen

Key statistics:

56% higher sales per session vs. website – More spend per visit.
43% higher conversion rate – Less friction, more checkouts.
10-20% of total monthly sales from the app – A major revenue driver.

With higher conversion rates, bigger sales per session, and a direct push notification channel, BrüMate’s app is a crucial sales channel.

Driving up to 20% of total monthly revenue, it’s a low-cost, high-impact retention tool that BrüMate fully controls.

Art of Tea

Category: Food/Beverage

Key statistics:

3.4x higher conversion rate vs. mobile web – Less friction, more purchases.
4.6x higher order value per session – Bigger carts, higher revenue.
20k+ app downloads – A loyal, high-intent customer base.

Art of Tea’s app drives higher conversion rates and significantly larger orders per session, outperforming their mobile web experience.

Now with 20,000+ downloads, Art of Tea has built a dedicated, high-value customer base that keeps coming back.

Recode Studios

Category: Beauty

Key statistics:

+63% total revenue growth – The app isn’t just performing—it’s scaling the business.
7x higher conversion rate – Turning browsers into buyers at an unmatched rate.
50% repeat purchase rate – 20% higher than mobile web, locking in loyalty.
16.89% abandoned cart conversion – Recovering lost sales with high-impact push notifications.
25k monthly active users, 200k sessions – A deeply engaged customer base.

Recode Studios’ app is a profit engine.

With a 7x conversion rate boost, 50% repeat purchase rate, and abandoned cart notifications converting at nearly 17%, the app drives revenue while keeping customers coming back.

With 25k+ active users and 200k monthly sessions, it’s clear: the app is Recode’s top retention tool.

Learn more: check out these articles for a closer look at the case for DTC brands to launch apps, plus the best examples of successful ecommerce apps.

Final Verdict: Should Your Brand Build an App?

With the low barrier to entry provided by no-code solutions like MobiLoud, it makes sense for the majority of successful DTC brands to launch their own mobile app.

Here’s a simple checklist. If you check 3+ boxes, an app is worth considering:

You sell products that customers reorder regularly.
Your business has a loyalty, subscription, or community component.
Your mobile site already performs well, (making an app easy to launch).
You want higher retention and better customer data.
You can invest in driving app downloads and keeping users engaged.

If an app isn’t the right fit, focus on building a great mobile web experience that converts.

But keep the idea of an app in mind – if, in the future, your business model pivots to focus more on retention and repeat business, an app might suddenly make a lot of sense.

Next steps?

If your mobile website works great, get in touch with our team to schedule a free consultation, and get a free preview of your app.

You can also learn more about what MobiLoud does, and why it’s the best way for modern brands to level up their retention game with a mobile app.

Get weekly insights on retention and growth.

Does Your Brand Need a Mobile App?