When should a supplements and health store in Saudi Arabia build an app?

After the store has a repeat customer base and before its advertising costs make the second sale as expensive as the first. That window is narrower than it sounds and most stores notice it from the wrong side.

The timing, and the cost of getting it wrong either way

Built too early it is a cost with nothing to do. Built too late, the customers who would have installed it have already been re-bought several times through paid channels, and that money is gone.

An app earns its place through repeat purchases and notifications, so the question is really about how often somebody buys. For a supplements and health store in Saudi Arabia, the answer turns on one thing in particular: Subscription behaviour without a subscription: people finish a tub and reorder, often on the same day of the month.

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 supplements and health 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

Reorder reminders are the whole opportunity, and they are free through an app and paid through anything else.