Already thinking about Black Friday and Cyber Monday? Learn more about how one Tapcart customer saw BFCM as a golden opportunity to drive more customers to the app, supercharging BFCM revenue while growing its push subscriber base for years to come.

Here's what's in store:

1. Meet Obvi, a company that always kicks off BFCM sales on its app first
2. In 2021, Obvi’s app saved Black Friday when its website crashed
3. Preparing for Black Friday and Cyber Monday — right now

Meet Obvi, a company that always kicks off BFCM sales on its app first

If you haven’t heard of Obvi yet, here’s what you need to know. The company is making a splash in the health and wellness space with its playfully-packaged, ultra-high-quality supplements. And the company’s co-founder and CEO, Ron Shah, isn’t shy about how the brand leans on its app to keep its customers educated, engaged, and loyal. 

Obvi always launches sales on its app first, whether it’s March or November. According to Ron, the company does this for a few reasons:

1. Because the app can parse out different types of customers at different times, Obvi can better measure incrementality. 
2. Because the app typically hosts the best Obvi customers, Obvi can better gauge customer reaction to sales and offers. After all, if the best customers aren’t biting on the app, why would fickle customers bite on a less-captive platform?
3. Because directing customers to the app is a golden opportunity to grow retention and revenue in the long run. App users spend more frequently and more in general.  

That’s why, when it comes to the biggest sale of the year, it’s no surprise Obvi jumpstarts BFCM right on its app. Shopify agrees it’s important to “run deep Black Friday deals”— meaning everything comes down to your offer—it’s the one time out of the year you can lower your prices without feeling like you’re losing brand integrity and to make sure your offer is compelling.

“We usually run our BFCM for one month, and in that month, the app is our kick-off. And any time throughout that month we’re launching anything new or coming out with a new flavor or whatever, you’ll first see it on the app,” Ron said. 

By letting customers know — via other platforms (website) and pillars of retention marketing (email, SMS)—that Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales are launching on the app first, the company encourages customers to flock to the app. 

This, of course, isn’t just good for holiday sales but for long-term retention marketing. After all, these push notification subscribers aren’t going to delete the app on New Year's Day. (We mean it. Obvi’s 90-day app user retention rate is 98.6%.) 

That means that enticing customers to download the app with exclusive sales, offers, and early access can raise those buyers' lifetime value (LTV). The statistics back that up, too, since Obvi’s average order value (AOV) is 15.2% higher on the app than on the web. 

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In 2021, Obvi’s app saved Black Friday when its website crashed

A couple of years ago, on Black Friday, Obvi’s website crashed from too much traffic right as sales were surging. 

“We were kind of panicking,” Ron said. “And I remember we had diverted everyone to the app because it was the only part of our brand that was still up and running. And it shows kind of the sustainability of having two platforms as well, because that's another thing about BFCM. It’s high volume, and it’s also high chances of things not going right.”

When it comes to traffic spikes, we love to see it… but heavy traffic can lead to poor load time, and we all know every second counts. The load time benchmark for an eCommerce website is two seconds, any higher and you risk losing a sale rises to 87%. But remember, it’s not only web traffic that cause crashes. Website malfunctions can be caused by all sorts of problems, including server errors, code errors, and plugin errors. 

With Tapcart’s mobile app solution, Obvi was able to deliver against the high pressure and high volume traffic that’s inevitable during BFCM. On top of that, Obvi was able to provide customers with a fast mobile experience, including instant loading and checkout. 

Adding a mobile app to your sales channel provides more scalability, flexibility and reliability to your business. For Shopify Plus brands, it’s a no-brainer to expand like this and make sure you’re tech can keep up with you and your customers. 

This iconic TikTok truly encapsulates the universal eComm stress when your site crashes. To help mediate, LSKD also hopped on the mobile app train. They leverage their app during high-traffic moments like BFCM as a hub for their most valuable customers — they don't miss out on any chance of conversion.

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Preparing for Black Friday and Cyber Monday — right now

As Ron mentioned, the holiday shopping blitz is the perfect time for ecommerce brands to convert traditional customers into app customers. (App customers, after all, are reachable via push notification — making customer retention marketing more measurable, more effective, and less expensive than SMS and email.)

Besides, more and more customers are eager to shop on their phones. According to our 2022 BFCM Peak Szn Report, mobile app is an increasingly preferred method for shopping across all product categories. Shoppers listed fast checkout times, exclusive offers, early access, and faster-loading pages as the top benefits of shopping via app. 

If you already have an app, now’s the time to start pushing customers to the app. Most Tapcart customers, including VRG GRL, agree that an app allows customers to engage with the brand more closely and interact with content and collections differently. Combine that with the FOMO-centric, app-exclusive sales, launches, and restocks Obvi swears by, and you’ve got a recipe for boosted LTV. 

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If you don’t have an app yet, no sweat. You don’t need a year to build a beautiful, on-brand app. Tapcart apps, which function as an extension of companies’ Shopify stores, are built by our team in two weeks. And because your app is engineered to intuitively sync with your store’s newest collections and content, the app requires virtually no bandwidth to maintain — about an hour a week, maximum. 

In about fourteen days, your company can have a new, owned marketing and sales channel that not only boosts BFCM performance but also drives retention, builds community, and engages with your best customers through measurable, effective push notifications delivered right to their home screens every day of the year. 

If you’re interested in learning more about how an app can grow your retention in the long run, our team of mobile experts is here to help. Hop on a call to chat about whether an app is a good fit for your brand.