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Rue La La anticipates bigger-than-ever mobile surge during upcoming holiday season

Ecommerce boutique retailer Rue La La is expecting big things from its mobile application during the 2014 holiday season after seeing more than 50 percent of its sales through a mobile device during the 2013 holiday season.

Following last year, the app has received several upgrades in attempt to respond to customer feedback that Rue La La has collected. As Rue members become more comfortable spending via their mobile devices, the brand is prepped and ready for a hopeful and profitable season.

?Whether our members were out at the stores or leaning back on their sofas, they were shopping on our app last holiday season, buying everything from luxury handbags to cashmere gloves,? said Gabriella Weinstein, senior mobile product marketing manager at Rue La La, Boston.

Holiday cheer
Last year, the traditional holiday shopping season was shorter than normal, leaving customers with less time to shop for their family members.

Rue La La saw extensive traffic coming from the app during that time, with 50 percent of sales coming through its app, and on Thanksgiving day alone, over 60 percent of transactions were made on a mobile device.  

Rue La La paid close attention to customer feedback following holiday and has made changes to its app in response.
 
?We always take member feedback seriously, and after last holiday, we received many inquiries for sorting and filtering capabilities,? Ms. Weinstein said. ?Those are now live on our app.?

Users of the app can now filter or sort products according to price, category, brand, color and size. Sorting items by those that are best selling is also a filter option.

Through the success of the app, executives are able to learn from its users to better target offers to them.
 
?Members who use our apps are exponentially more valuable to us both from a demand and visitation standpoint, and we?re already working hard to build that momentum for this season,? Ms. Weinstein said. ?Mobile accounts for over 50 percent of our daily traffic and we expect this to grow this season, as consumers are even more comfortable with mobile shopping than they were last year.?

Aiming to please
Rue La La constantly takes steps toward making the user experience on its app as seamless as possible.
Earlier this year, Rue La La implemented a credit card scanner on its app to further simplify the payment process for members.

Much similar to a check scanner on most banking apps seen these days, the tool uses a smartphone camera to photograph the card, alleviating the tedious typing of the 16-digit card number. The implementation reflected Rue La La?s constant push to bring the most innovative technology to mobile shoppers (see story).

In February, Rue La La revamped its app to propel conversions by eliminating any distractions that caused cart abandonment, which included providing more photos and implementing a new checkout page.

As Rue La La continued to see more traffic moving mobile, the revamp showed the importance of nailing the mobile checkout experience for flash sales retailers. At the time, the changes were only rolled out across Rue La La?s iPhone app, with a similar update planned for the company?s iPad app (see story).

And yet, there is still more to come, as Rue La La anticipates the launch of iOS8 and is also testing out push notifications.

?Our team is preparing for the launch of iOS8 with some exciting new features that make our app even more engaging,? Ms. Weinstein said. ?We are also looking at our push strategy to target members when they are in the mindset to purchase, and will constantly refresh merchandise to encourage returning customers.?

Final Take
Caitlyn Bohannon is editorial assistant on Mobile Marketer, New York