Among US online adults, 37% regularly use retailer mobile apps to make a purchase. Retailers’ mobile apps help shoppers who want to research a potential purchase, find promotions and coupons, and buy products or services. Forrester’s newly published report, The Forrester Digital Experience Review™: US Retail Mobile Apps, Q1 2025, evaluates how well retailers are meeting customers’ needs and expectations with their mobile app capabilities.
In late 2024, Forrester evaluated 10 leading US retail mobile apps to gauge their utility and effectiveness, as well as best practices that retail digital leaders should learn from. This review uncovers the leaders in US retail mobile apps, highlights key findings within the mobile app experience, and explores best-in-class features. Here are three main takeaways from the top Digital Experience Review performers:
- High scorers add innovative features where it makes sense. Top scorer Lowe’s offers its mobile app users a holistic shopping experience and has added functionality to enhance its search offering. The brand’s “Style Studio” offering allows customers to take a picture of their space and scroll through different design offerings to find new products that fit within it. Shoppers can then view the products they are interested in within the Style Studio page.
- Utility features go beyond management and offer added value. Kroger shines in the utility category: Shoppers can manage their accounts on the mobile app and track prior purchases. Kroger shoppers are also able to use the saved data from past purchases with “OptUP,” which gives holistic health scores to their purchases. App users also get product recommendations to improve the health score of their cart.
- Shoppers enjoy easy browsing regardless of how they choose to fulfill their purchase. Sephora makes it easy for mobile app shoppers to browse product result pages and see if the item is available for “buy online, pick up in store” or same-day delivery. Filter options allow users to only see items that they can pick up in the store or that qualify for same-day or next-day delivery. Shoppers may add all items to their cart, regardless of which fulfillment option the customer chooses, and can buy products in one transaction, regardless of the delivery type that they’ve chosen for each item in the cart. Sephora enables Apple Pay and PayPal as options for one-click checkout.
If you’re a Forrester client, you can explore these findings in detail by downloading the full report. And if you’d like to discuss this topic further or understand how your mobile app measures up, please schedule an inquiry or guidance session with me.
