For more than 18 years, G and G Glamour has been helping women dress stylishly and beautifully, and feel confident and one of a kind. As the official distributor of leading international clothing brands MaxMara, Fendi, Marina Rinaldi, Sergio Rossi, Simonetta Ravizza and Weekend MaxMara, the company sells through a network of 10 boutiques in the largest cities of Kazakhstan, Almaty and Nur-Sultan, as well as through its online store catalogue. Looking to develop and grow, G and G Glamour turned to the AniArt developers to modernise its existing website. Here is how the project went and what the collaboration achieved.
An online store that is always with you
The G&G online store approached the AniArt team to make its existing website more convenient and more functional for customers. What was needed was a solution that would give the easiest possible access to the product catalogue, help shoppers navigate a huge assortment and place orders quickly and comfortably.
Statistics showed that over 85% of G and G Glamour customers use the mobile version of the site. Given those figures, the decision was obvious: build a dedicated app for iOS and Android. The main goal was to improve the company's customer service and create a comfortable environment where the customer could shop quickly.
One of the online store's key requirements was to create an app as close as possible to the main website that regular users were already used to. To achieve this, the user interface was implemented on a JS basis. A full-featured responsive version of the mobile site was wrapped in a JS shell so that the site became a mobile app and could carry all the app functions that were needed, since the site itself does not offer that range of capabilities.
Fast, clear, precise. Benefits for users
All it takes to start using the app is to find G&G (GGONLINE) in the AppStore or PlayMarket and download it to your device. From that moment the app is ready to use. This is far more convenient than the mobile version of the site, where the customer first has to open a browser and then type in the site address. Once the free mobile app is installed, a single tap on the screen gives the customer access to more than 2000 items right on a smartphone or tablet, where they can search, compare and choose the product they like.
Access in one tap
More than 2000 catalogue items open up immediately after the app launches, with no browser and no typing in the site address.
Personal account
Registered and signed-in users get access to their account, which stores their purchase history and personal offers.
An order in a few clicks
This solution makes it possible to place an order in literally a few clicks and then track its status at every stage of fulfilment.
Updates without a re-release
The JavaScript-based shell allows iOS and Android versions to be built at the same time and lets functionality and design be edited quickly without a re-release in the store.
Given the large number of products, it was important to maintain the performance of the site. We work on speed regularly: the developers systematically increase server space, speed up the exchange with the ERP system, and optimise photos and the loading of site blocks. This work makes the app as fast and stable as possible for the user.
The site design was created by our partners Turum-burum — turumburum.ua.
The team's view
This case was especially interesting for us: we did not simply build an app, we carefully carried the site experience customers already knew over into a mobile format, preserving the catalogue logic, the speed and the convenience of placing an order. As a team with many years of experience in IT, we kept our focus on priorities, on synchronising development, on quality, and on getting through publication in the App Store and Google Play without unnecessary iterations.Svitlana Bragina, IT project manager at AniArt
It is also worth noting that the solution gave the business direct savings on communications: instead of paid SMS campaigns we use push notifications. For reference: under the SMS Click business pricing in Kazakhstan, the cost of a single message depends on the operator and the sender name, and at campaign volumes that difference quickly adds up to a noticeable amount.
The main difficulties we ran into
Publishing an app in the official AppStore and PlayMarket is one of the most important stages of the implementation process. Not every app that gets built makes it onto these platforms. To get approval, you need not only to justify why a mobile app is warranted when a website already exists, but also to pass several levels of review. For example, you have to obtain confirmation that the app being downloaded contains no viruses and is safe for the user.
While building the iOS app, the requirements were quite strict and the conditions rather demanding, namely:
- Account registration. Apple staff call you personally and clarify every detail about the future owner of the app: the country of residence and the purpose for which the account is being registered. The annual subscription fee is no guarantee that they will approve the creation of the account and the release of the app.
- Development environment. The app must be built directly in Xcode, the integrated software development environment for the macOS, iOS, watchOS and tvOS platforms.
- Automated review. Once the initial requirements for the app are met, an automated search for malicious software takes place. Passing that check, however, still does not guarantee publication.
- Submission for publication. It is worth noting that quite a large number of apps are rejected at this stage. At the same time, AppleStore and PlayMarket staff send app owners a list of requirements that need to be fulfilled.
- Repeat submissions. Once the requirements are met, a new submission for publication is made. There can be quite a few of these. Many companies cannot get past this stage but, fortunately, we managed it.
- Manual testing. Next, after all the automated checks, an Apple employee tests the app in real conditions. For a while they take on the role of a G&G Glamour customer and become a user of the app: browsing products, adding them to favourites and so on.
- New requirements during the process. Requirements are regularly added to, and our case was no exception. Before one of the submissions for publication, additional requirements were introduced for all applicants, and we handled those too.
- Persistence. We did not give up: we met the requirements and kept up the correspondence until publication was fully approved. In the end, the AppleStore and PlayMarket staff gave the green light. We gained enormous experience, which we are endlessly glad about.
Having gone through all the necessary stages of review, the G&G mobile app received the approvals needed for customers to use it and gave users a way to shop quickly and conveniently.
A new channel for engaging with customers
The app is convenient not only for users; it also takes no special effort to maintain on the administrators' side. Absolutely every change made on the site is reflected in the app automatically, which reduces the cost of implementing improvements. As a result, there is no need for a programmer to maintain the mobile apps.
Administration of the site remained just as convenient and familiar. An additional section appeared in the admin panel, responsible for push notifications: scheduled ones, ones based on app interaction scenarios, and abandoned carts. All of this is managed through the admin panel.
The mobile app effectively opened up an additional channel of communication with customers for the company and helped improve engagement with them considerably. The AniArt developers implemented the ability to send instant, scheduled and situational push notifications to customers. For example, marketing campaigns can be segmented, personalising the message for signed-in and signed-out customers.
It is worth pointing out that this was not possible before. Now the G&G online store can easily inform users about new arrivals or a sale on luxury clothing. What is more, push notifications can also be configured for cases where a user has left a cart with items in it, and you can choose how often those notifications are sent: once, once every three days and so on. A pop-up notification on the screen is a good way to remind someone about an unfinished action and encourage the user to make a purchase.
At the same time, sending push notifications to customers is a significant financial saving for the company compared with sending SMS messages. The charge for sending a single SMS is around 30–40 cents. A campaign to 1000 people (one segment) several times a month would add up to a tidy sum.
What a push notification can contain
- Title
- Description
- A link to a promotion page or a product
- A choice of background and sound (for Android devices)
Scenarios that trigger notifications
| Notification type | When it fires | What is inside |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled | According to the marketing campaign schedule | New arrivals, sale on luxury clothing |
| Scenario-based | The customer has downloaded the app and opens it from time to time, but has not signed in | A prompt to sign in to the app |
| Scenario-based | The customer is signed in but has not opened the app for a long time | New collections or products based on previously viewed items |
| Abandoned cart | The user has left a cart with items added to it | A reminder to complete the order; frequency: once, once every three days and so on |
| Instant | When a campaign needs to go out urgently | The administrator can set it up even from a mobile phone |
Results
A full-featured mobile app helps customers browse products more conveniently and place orders more easily. For the company, the solution helped improve communication with users and also noticeably optimised resources, since there is no need to go to technical specialists for small improvements.
What comes next
Among the nearest plans is an analysis of how effective push notifications are: which messages exactly, and what information inside them, most encourage a purchase here and now. In the future we also plan to develop the app further so that a user can place an order even when the internet connection suddenly drops.
Feedback on working with AniArt
Thanks to the high professionalism of the AniArt team, we got not just an online product catalogue but a fully working website. The project was delivered very quickly, and the solution proposed turned out to be the optimal one for us. Everything the specialists suggested proved to be the best option given the specifics of our request. The AniArt specialists supported us at every stage of the project: project development, SEO optimisation and promotion, creating a marketing plan, and integration with the accounting system.Zhaniya Sauranbayeva, director of GGONLINE
