What’s the latest with retail mobile apps?

Build it and they will come

Veit’s blueprint for a compelling retailer mobile app in 2025 starts with building a comprehensive app strategy aligned with the wider business strategy.

“At John Lewis, we could see from data that our app customers were our best customers, and that customers who started using the app shopped more frequently shopped across all channels and were three times more valuable,” she says.

“So, our strategy was to be app-first and to use the web for acquisition and the app for retention and relationship building to drive valuable customer interactions. The app became the home of loyalty – the glue between our channels.”

Baby and parent product retailer Mamas and Papas launched its first mobile app in February using tech company Poq’s platform.

Jo Molineux, the retailer’s digital director, said at the time of launch that it “brings together expert advice, product recommendations and a seamless shopping experience. Whether browsing while awaiting a new arrival or during a 3am night feed, parents can easily access the support and inspiration they need, whenever they need it.”

Her comments suggest the app is going to be much more than a place for transactions.

Once a retailer has decided what features it wants in a mobile app, Veit’s advice is to look at whether it is possible to build it internally with existing engineering capability, adding: “If not, ask what third parties excel at creating these kinds of apps and how well will they partner and work with your broader teams – not just to make the thing, but to build your capability internally. You also need to think about what tooling you want to unlock data and whether your existing tools work well in native apps or app frameworks.”

According to the ex-Kingfisher CPO, it is difficult to find A/B testing platforms that have specific testing capability for apps. If a retailer wants to do this to test, validate and demonstrate return on investment (ROI), they may require a specific supplier such as Airship, she says.

Additionally, Veit urges retailers to see where most of their traffic originates from and decide whether the app is going to be iOS-first or Android-first accordingly. “For John Lewis, this tended to be iOS; for Kingfisher, there were more Android trade users. So, we used an engineering approach that enabled us to build once and use it in both by using Kotlin Media Manager, but there are other frameworks.”

AI and tech sophistication

In May, online fashion retailer MandM built a mobile app for both iOS and Android, which utilises Google Cloud and Contentstack technologies and provides AI-powered search and browsing for what the retailer says results in improved product discoverability.

Ocado’s newly launched app, which the retailer is migrating existing customers across to at the time of writing, also promises better product discoverability as well as a “recipe binder” to store away inspiration for meals Ocado can supply the ingredients for. Content and features that add to the stickiness of a platform are favoured by retailers in the current app space.

Live shopping is starting to play a more integral part in retailers’ mobile apps too, with Zara paving the way for more wide scale adoption of this feature in Europe. Zara is livestreaming in the UK and Europe after successful trials in China, with supermodel Cindy Crawford and her daughter starring in special broadcasts where shoppers can purchase the clothes off their back by clicking through to product pages as the broadcast takes place.

For MandM, the ability to continually evolve is important. Its app, built alongside Valtech, comes to market with a scalable framework using Google’s Flutter software that promises an opportunity to make user interface updates when required.

Tom Goode, customer and e-commerce director at MandM, which appointed former Notonthehighstreet vice-president of technology Dan Lake as a director in June, said of the new app: “We’ve not only gained technological sophistication, but also new ways of working and thinking when it comes to product innovation and prioritisation.”

Veit acknowledges some of the new capabilities generative AI (GenAI) is providing “are genuinely useful and exciting for shopping, especially regarding voice and vision. Remember that your phone has both LiDAR [light detection and ranging] and an excellent camera and microphone,” she says.

“They should be used to deliver exceptional experiences that delight customers and make sense commercially. One of these experiences built on AI is Screwfix Lens, which is only available in the app and allows the customer to take a picture of a ‘thing’ and find it. Now customers don’t need to know the ‘thing’s’ name when searching.”

More intricate detail can be found on this via Kingfisher-Technology’s Medium account. Machine learning engineer Elliot Ford wrote on the website in July: “Behind that simple user experience, we’re using sophisticated yet robust and reliable AI tools. Building on top of production-ready components, including Google’s Vector Search and Vertex AI Pipelines, allows us to focus on tailoring our solution to our customers’ needs.”

Jay Johnson, CEO of Poq, talks of the potential greater imminent influence of extended reality in retail. He is very clear that augmentation, not virtual reality, is the route to take here, and the app can support these experiences.

“Apple Vision Pro has got it right in the sense of allowing the user to adjust the amount of augmentation,” he says. “That’s where we’re going to see the big advance, because if anyone has tried the full VR experience, it’s like running a marathon with a bucket on your head. I think that doesn’t lend itself as much to shopping as being able to dial in a layer of information.”

Johnson envisages consumers soon might see someone wearing a pair of shoes in public, and a scan of a mobile app might trigger an AI assistant to inform the user of colour and size availability at a nearby shop. That’s not unlike what Screwfix has achieved with Lens.

Veit also calls on retailers to have a “robust” App Store optimisation capability in place to ensure the app remains visible, and to think about the app as part of wider data strategy. App notifications should also be connected to a retailer’s marketing automation systems, she advises.

App power

With the advent of AI, retailers will find support with hyper-personalisation, interesting ways to accelerate product discovery, content, and conversational commerce, according to Johnson.

He says the future of the mobile app as a shopping tool will be built on its strengths of “immediacy, mobility, incredible user experience – and, significantly, first-party data. The insight you get from an app and the ability to understand behaviours and interactions is really strong especially when you think about personalisation.”

Furniture retailer Ikea announced a raft of updates to its app in February, including the introduction of more 3D visualisations and personalised recommendations. The former, known as Ikea Kreativ, allows users to view a would-be purchase in its intended scenario in 3D.

Ikea Family loyalty members also now have access to an enhanced space with exclusive discounts and personalised offers based on their shopping preferences, with perks available in exchange for points and insider access to special events and product launches.

It’s early days for the Mamas and Papas, but the average dwell time on the app is around 10 minutes – which is some way ahead of its mobile and desktop sites, and starts to provide an ROI in the new platform.

“There are so many options and directions of travel with mobile apps that you must be guided by analytics, and you need to understand that in terms of your goals,” Johnson says. “Personalisation is table stakes – customers are starting to expect tailored experience and product recommendations – and be aware of the first-party data apps give you as you can really understand a lot about customer intent and journey friction points.”