The 2025 Shopping App Report: 13 Trends Shaping Mobile Commerce

2025 was a big year for mobile commerce - especially shopping apps.

The majority of shoppers today are mobile-first. They’re convenience-first. They’re largely becoming engagement-first.

In 2025, live shopping finally hit the mainstream. Discount marketplaces like Temu kept their grip on the top of the charts. And resale apps had their best year yet.

This report breaks down the 13 trends that defined mobile commerce in 2025, based on data from Sensor Tower, Appfigures, Statista, and company disclosures.

Read more: Check out our Top Shopping Apps of 2025 - original rankings listing the 25 top-performing shopping apps of the year.

Executive Summary

Here are the most significant numbers and biggest players on the scene in 2025:

• Whatnot grew downloads 541% year-over-year and hit $6B in GMV
• Temu remained the #1 shopping app globally for the third year in a row, with 530 million monthly active users
• Vinted was named Best Retail App 2025 in the UK; the US secondhand market grew 14% to $56 billion+
• Blinkit led global ecommerce download growth at 165%
• Holiday 2025 hit $257.8 billion in online spending (November-December), up 6.8% from last year

The pattern that stayed consistent across the whole market was that apps that got people to come back (not just buy once) were the ones that grew.

13 Trends That Defined Mobile Commerce in 2025

1. Live Shopping Went Mainstream

Live shopping app Whatnot did $6 billion in GMV in 2025 - double what they did in 2024. Downloads grew 541%. In November alone, they added 1.61 million new installs.

Here's the stat that gets people's attention: users spend 80 minutes a day on Whatnot. That's more than Netflix.

Live shopping works because it combines entertainment with commerce. People tune in, they build relationships with sellers, and they keep coming back.

Apps like Whatnot are just the beginning. Live shopping is already massive in certain markets, like Southeast Asia. In 2026, expect this channel to become an even bigger factor in Western markets.

2. Community-Driven Sellers Beat Anonymous Storefronts

Whatnot's sellers aren't faceless merchants. They're collectors, enthusiasts, experts. People follow them.

The platform's reward program drives a 20% lift in repeat purchases. That's not a small number.

When buyers trust the seller (not just the platform) they buy more and come back more often.

3. Discount Marketplaces Held Their Ground

Temu remained the #1 shopping app in the world (in terms of new downloads) for the third straight year. 

The numbers are hard to wrap your head around: 1.2 billion total downloads, 530 million monthly active users, top ranking in North America, Latin America, Middle East, Africa, Japan, and South Korea.

They spend over $2 billion a year on marketing. They connect directly to manufacturers. They keep prices lower than almost anyone else. It's a hard model to compete with.

4. Fast Fashion Kept Growing (Controversies and All)

SHEIN had 74 million downloads in the first half of 2025. Their supply chain runs on 7-day production cycles. Estimated revenue hit $58.5 billion.

There's plenty of criticism around labor practices, environmental impact, and IP issues. But the download numbers keep climbing, especially among younger, price-conscious shoppers.

5. Resale Had Its Best Year

Vinted grew revenue 36% and was named Best Retail App 2025 in the UK. The US secondhand market hit $56 billion, up 14% from last year.

This isn't just a Gen Z thing anymore. Sustainability concerns are real, and so is the appeal of saving money. Vinted's zero-fee model gives them an edge over competitors who take a cut.

6. Quick Commerce Proved It Works

Indian instant delivery app Blinkit grew downloads 165% from January to October. That made it the fastest growing ecommerce app in 2025.

Their promise: groceries in 10 minutes. In dense urban markets, with people living increasingly busy lives, that’s a huge selling point.

This category is still mostly an emerging-market story, but it's starting to show up in US cities too.

7. Discovery Beats Search

Whatnot's whole design is built around stumbling onto things you didn't know you wanted. They have an "and whatnot" section - basically uncategorized stuff - where new categories emerge organically.

Add to that the success of TikTok Shop, where consumers discover new products rather than searching for a specific thing, and the growing dominance of influencer-leg UGC ads, and we’ve got a major trend to follow.

Users say they're more satisfied when they find something unexpected than when they search for something specific and find it.

For years, ecommerce was about making search as efficient as possible. Now the apps winning on engagement are the ones that make browsing feel like discovery.

8. Niche Apps Found Their Footing

Sole Retriever (sneaker drops and raffles), ThriftAI (thrift store arbitrage), and other category-specific apps stayed in the top 100 shopping app rankings all year.

They do one thing really well for a specific audience. The big marketplaces can't match that level of specialization. If you're deep into sneakers, Sole Retriever does things Amazon never will.

9. BNPL Became Part of Shopping, Not Just Checkout

Klarna, Affirm, and Afterpay were all mainstays in the top 15 shopping (and shopping-adjacent) apps throughout 2025.

But they're not just payment apps anymore.

Klarna has marketplace features now. Affirm keeps expanding merchant partnerships. They're becoming shopping experiences, not just payment options.

10. Big Retailers Adapted Well

Amazon, Walmart, Target, and Best Buy all maintained positions in the top 25 most-downloaded shopping apps. The Amazon Shopping app has 105+ million monthly active users.

While niche apps and discount retailers are having their moment, the big players in retail are still seeing major success.

Their advantage is logistics: same-day delivery, in-store pickup, returns anywhere. Mobile apps make that more convenient. For a lot of shoppers, that convenience beats lower prices elsewhere.

11. Rewards Programs Keep People Coming Back

Capital One Shopping, Fetch Rewards, and similar apps stayed among the top 15-30 most popular shopping apps the whole year.

The mechanics are simple: use the app, get money back, repeat. Fetch's automatic receipt scanning makes it even easier. Once people start accumulating rewards, they don't want to stop.

12. Marketplaces Consolidated, But Differentiation Still Won

Despite competition, long-standing marketplaces like eBay, Etsy, and Alibaba all remain hugely successful.

Each one carves out a distinct lane: eBay has auctions, Etsy has handmade goods, Alibaba has B2B.

But newcomers like Whatnot and Vinted still grabbed share by doing something different; live shopping and zero-fee resale. Format innovation still works.

13. Global Expansion Pays Off

Temu grew across North America, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Japan, and South Korea. Blinkit scaled across India. Whatnot expanded to Europe with 340,000 hours of weekly livestreams.

Emerging markets are adopting mobile commerce fast - sometimes faster than developed markets.

What This Means for Ecommerce Brands

A few things stand out from the data:

1. Engagement matters more than transactions.

The apps that grew weren't just optimizing for checkout. They were getting people to spend time; 80 minutes a day in Whatnot's case. Brands that treat their app as a destination, not just a store, see better results.

2. Community creates loyalty.

Push notifications, personalization, rewards programs: these things work. But the deeper play is building a relationship where customers actually want to hear from you.

3. Discovery is underrated.

Search optimization is table stakes. But the apps winning on engagement are the ones surfacing products people didn't know they wanted.

4. Mobile-first is the expectation now.

If it wasn’t before, it’s clear now that your customers are mobile-first. You should be designing your experiences with mobile in mind - as well as building mobile-first retention channels like apps.

5. Retention beats acquisition.

Customer acquisition costs keep rising. The math favors brands that get more value from customers they already have.

Looking Ahead to 2026

Based on what we saw in 2025, here are some predictions for where the market is heading in 2026:

• Live shopping will expand to more categories and more markets
• Discount marketplaces may face more regulatory pressure, especially in the US and EU
• Quick commerce will keep growing in emerging markets and start testing in more US cities
• Resale will keep accelerating - it's not just a young-consumer trend anymore
• Retention will become the main battleground - the brands that win will be the ones that get customers to come back

The brands that treat mobile as a core channel, not an afterthought, are the ones set up to grow.

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The data here tells a clear story: retention, convenience, and mobile-first engagement are hugely important for today’s shoppers.

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Report published January 2026. Data sources: Sensor Tower, Appfigures, Statista, Business of Apps, company disclosures. Coverage Period: January – December 2025. Markets: United States (primary), Global context. Platforms: iOS App Store + Google Play. Compiled by MobiLoud - turn your ecommerce website into an app in 30 days.