Which Shopping App Grew The Most This Black Friday? (Not Amazon)

2023 hasn't been an amazing year for Amazon's downloads. Maybe everyone already has the app? Maybe there's more shopping on the web?

The more reasonable reason - There's more competition!

Black Friday and Cyber Monday just ended, giving us a good insight into which shopping app has generated the most excitement.

Spoiler alert - It's not Amazon.

I analyzed the most downloaded shopping apps in the US which include Amazon, Walmart, SHEIN, and Temu. The latter two have been advertising aggressively for quite a while now.

Collectively, downloads for the set grew 6% when comparing this November to last November. Considering the entire Shopping category was down according to the Mobile Download Index, that's a good sign.

But not all apps are enjoying that growth.

When it comes to new downloads, Amazon came in last this November. The aging king saw 1.8M downloads in November in the US, according to our estimates. And that's not it. When compared to last November, downloads are down a whopping 27%.

Moving up we see Walmart, which came in third with 2.5M downloads after growing 40% from October. But even with the bump, Walmart's downloads are still 2% lower than last November.

I think I know why, but let's continue with the results, which will make my conclusion even more clear.

SHEIN came in 2nd adding 2.8M new users from the US, according to our estimates. And unlike its US competitors, SHEIN's downloads are up a massive 26% when compared to last November. That could be another reason the company is going public soon.

And last, actually first, is Temu. The shopping app that took the US by storm with abnormal ad campaigns that push it to the top of the App Store and Google Play regularly. Temu saw 7.2M downloads in the US this November, 16% higher than November of last year.

And if you're counting in your head, Temu's downloads outpaced all three competitors combined!

So why did Amazon and Walmart slide while Temu and SHEIN rose? It's not ad spend - all companies can do that. It's all about the price.

Temu's products are dirt cheap. The reviews say they're also worth exactly that, but that's not stopping people from trying it out. SHEIN is in a very similar boat. At a time when credit card balances are exploding, debt is becoming more expensive, and Buy Now Pay Later is becoming a norm, cheaper is better.