Pulse
Concrete pains from app reviews — and how strong they are
- Shopping & ecommerce apps
Paid for it, but it never arrived
Pain 7 out of 10, strong. 203 reviews, in 49 of 95 apps. - Shopping & ecommerce apps
Fakes sold as authentic
Pain 5 out of 10, noticeable. 121 reviews, in 31 of 95 apps. - Shopping & ecommerce apps
The store cancels my paid order
Pain 5 out of 10, noticeable. 120 reviews, in 46 of 95 apps. - Shopping & ecommerce apps
Delivery takes weeks
Pain 5 out of 10, noticeable. 103 reviews, in 42 of 95 apps. - Shopping & ecommerce apps
They sent the wrong item or size
Pain 5 out of 10, noticeable. 94 reviews, in 45 of 95 apps. - Shopping & ecommerce apps
Going back from an item loses my place
Pain 4 out of 10, noticeable. 77 reviews, in 18 of 95 apps. - Shopping & ecommerce apps
Marked as delivered, but nothing arrived
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 45 reviews, in 25 of 95 apps. - Shopping & ecommerce apps
Customer reviews on product pages
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 45 reviews, in 11 of 95 apps. - Shopping & ecommerce apps
Show only items in my size
Pain 2 out of 10, mild. 39 reviews, in 16 of 95 apps. - Shopping & ecommerce apps
The item looks nothing like the photos
Pain 2 out of 10, mild. 36 reviews, in 22 of 95 apps.
How we count
The sample is up to 500 recent App Store reviews for each of about 100 popular apps per category. We look for each need across all of the category’s reviews and check a random sample of matches by hand: at least 80% are correct.
“Pain” is a rough score from 1 to 10: half comes from the share of the category’s reviews that mention it, 30% from how many such reviews there are in total, 20% from the share of apps where it comes up. It is not search demand and not market size.
In words: 1–3 mild · 4–6 noticeable · 7–8 strong · 9–10 acute.