Does a perfume store in Saudi Arabia need a mobile app?

Need is the wrong word. The question is whether enough people buy from you more than once for the second purchase to be worth engineering — and that is a number the store already has.

The question underneath the question

Pull the share of revenue from returning customers over the last twelve months. Below about a fifth, an app is early. Above a third, the store is already paying to reach people it could reach for nothing.

An app earns its place through repeat purchases and notifications, so the question is really about how often somebody buys. For a perfume store in Saudi Arabia, the answer turns on one thing in particular: Bought as a gift as often as for the buyer, which makes the seasonal peaks sharper than most categories.

What is different about Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia is the largest ecommerce market in the region by some distance, and the most phone-dominated.

Cash on delivery remains common in Saudi Arabia, which changes the economics of every refused delivery.

What is different about a perfume store

Built too early it is a cost with nothing to do — an app with no customers to bring back is a bookmark nobody made.

Where a mobile app comes into it

Gifting peaks reward a channel you can reach without paying — the week before Eid is not the week to be bidding on ads.