User Onboarding Flow and Processes for E-Commerce Apps [2021]

UPDATED: 21 September 2023
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Reading Time: 3 minutes

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User retention is any business’s biggest challenge. Even the best apps aren’t immune from the churn. The reality is, you need to be both proactive and strategic about getting your users hooked right from when they download your app. So, app onboarding becomes the holy grail when it comes to ensuring a great first impression for turning them into loyal customers through some engaging marketing campaigns!

Given that more than 20% of users who download an app only use it once, it’s important to design an engaging onboarding process that encourages them to return to your business app again.

Where do you start your onboarding from?

It’s simple: Start crafting a personalized onboarding journey using Flows on MoEngage and slowly walk them through the first critical steps to your success metrics.

Here’s how you can quickly set up a simple onboarding flow for your users who just installed your app and nudge them towards completing their milestones, be it purchase, sign-up or added products to cart or any other of your business goals!

Here are 5-simple steps to create an onboarding journey for an e-commerce client to move the new users towards their first purchase:

Step 1: Create a Flow with Conversion Goal as ‘Purchase’

Step 2: Enter users to the Flow who have done the ‘Install’ event but did not do the ‘Purchase’ event in the last 1 day.

Step 3: Target them on all the reachable channels like Push, Email or SMS spread out over a day.

Step 4: Wait for 24 hours and then check if your users have done ‘Purchase’ or any intermediate milestone like ‘Sign-up’.

Step 5: If they’ve done the purchase, exit them from the flow. If they’ve done any of the intermediate milestones, re-target them using a Push or an Email or an SMS to move them towards the final conversion.

Here’s a simple and top-performing Onboarding Flow use by a MoEngage’s platform user:

What can you do once the Flow is live?

Converted users from this Flow can be entered into the next flow, which could be about driving repeat purchases from these users.
Users who did not convert through this flow, identify which intermediate milestones have they performed, and engage them through single action campaigns. For example, Users who have done sign-up, send a promotional in-app campaign that would motivate them to complete their purchase.
Deep dive into the behavior of the users who have converted through this flow, and try to optimize it for the next set of new users.

Flows on MoEngage allow you to create user engagement journeys that help you acquire, engage, and retain customers. Here’s a case study on how Tokopedia improves first-month user retention by 60% using MoEngage.