ABOUT THE BRAND
Blending comfort and style in every stitch
Comfort, style, and quality aren’t mutually exclusive, not with BYLT Premium Basics.
The (mostly) DTC men’s and women’s premium apparel brand invests in testing and technology to build the perfect fabric blends that work with their customers’ lifestyles.
The transitional apparel, footwear, and accessories go from the golf course to date night to the office (though not in that order). Since its launch in 2017, the brand has expanded from men’s apparel to include women and even kids.
Bylt launched an app in July of 2023, and we had the pleasure of speaking with Kyle Turadek, Director of Growth, about its skyrocketing success with incremental sales.
THE CHALLENGE
BYLT’s hesitations about the level of effort behind a mobile app
Admittedly, Kyle and the BYLT team had reservations about a mobile app. Since BYLT is mostly a DTC brand, now with a few retail locations in Southern California, they invested heavily in their website and ecommerce experience. With so much time, effort, and content, they were worried they wouldn’t be able to make an app shine as brightly.
But that wasn’t their only reservation. As a lean team, they didn’t want to put the same effort they put into their website into an app experience. Building and managing an app to their standards seemed like it would be too much of a lift for their small and mighty team.
Plus, they couldn’t really see why or if their customers would bother to download an app. These objections made it difficult to convince leadership to put time and effort into building and dedicating marketing resources to an app.
So, what made them return to the idea of a mobile app? Their loyal customers.
BYLT’s quality products drive return rates anywhere from 70 to 80%. They have a very loyal customer base—and before Tapcart, they have nowhere to really give them a VIP experience.
Kyle wanted to improve BYLT’s customer lifetime value (LTV) and give loyal customers a place to connect with the brand, while also minimizing the lift for his team. They needed an app-building platform with the best integration with Shopify that would work with their tech stack.
“If you have that really strong cohort and you have that loyal customer, you owe them that to give them some different experience than the new [customer].”Kyle Turadek, Director of Growth
THE SOLUTION
The app wows customers and is easy to maintain and operationalize for the BYLT team (who doesn't love a win-win?)
With so much time and money invested in their Shopify website, BYLT wanted to ensure the app reflected their brand experience. Yet, they needed to be able to build the app quickly with their lean team—two qualifications that seem like they’re polar opposites.
But with Tapcart, they could build and launch the app in under two weeks.
BYLT is used to spending heavy dev hours on their ecommerce site to make changes and ensure the best experience, but the app doesn’t require the same lift. In fact, the app is light lift for the BYLT team to operationalize and maintain compared to a customized website because Tapcart's solution is headless. The team is able to update the app, test new product features, test new layouts, and get a read on the customer’s reactions without investing too much time. Plus, they can spin up an app-only offer in minutes.
"We’re able to be much more nimble with the app [than with our website] — we can go in and update content and offers much faster. You’re able to increase your amount of campaigns, increase your amount of offers you can get live. If we want to fire up an app only offer, we can do it in minutes."Kyle Turadek, Director of Growth
As easy as it was to put together, the incremental results they saw were truly shocking. To Kyle offering a VIP experience has contributed to the business' mobile success. "We truly are giving our most loyal customers a place for them to have a really different experience than the site: new content, early access to certain products, and app-only products." So while the website is optimized for new customers, the BYLT app strategy is curated to accomodate returning customers and cultivate the highest LTV. To customers, the app delivers a wow factor in a new digital way that leaves a lasting positive impression.
THE RESULTS
$1.4 million in sales and 31K downloads in 60 days
The BYLT app blew away all expectations and predictions. The team hard-launched the app in June with big incremental results.
Within the first 60 days, in-app purchases exceeded $1.4 million. The app was downloaded 31K times, which exceeded Tapcart’s predictions for the entire first year. To top it off, BYLT’s top 30% of customers traditionally spend around $265 over the course of a year. In the app? The LTV trended to $472 in just the first 60 days.
The app was tracking at about 10% of overall sales in the first 90 days—with only marketing in retention channels like email and SMS.
“It just became this constant daily rate of downloads, and now it's become a core part of our business. It's a daily 10% of our site revenue at minimum. And so we can really see that that cohort continues to use the app every single day."Kyle Turadek, Director of Growth
Within a few weeks, BYLT had an answer to their question: customers will absolutely download their app.
At the time of publishing, they still only use retention channels to market the app (although they plan to shift their strategy for BFCM). They offer all new app users a 20% discount and find that it helps them overcome any slight barrier to entry a download might prevent—although they haven’t found any resistance so far.
“We’ve seen the experience not have any barrier to purchase. It works extremely well,” said Kyle. “There’s no data point to look at to tell you otherwise.”
Kyle also knew that the loyal cohort of customers would do well in the app, but what surprised the team was the amount of net new customers that found the app, and their overall stats compared to the website.
Those who first experience BYLT through the app have higher average order values (AOV), higher conversion rates, and higher LTVs than customers ordering on the website. The incremental revenue from new customers made the app a no-brainer. Seeing those results gave the team the confidence to put more marketing effort into the app and take some risks.
Results convince leadership to switch up marketing strategies
As a premium product, BYLT hosts sitewide sales a few times yearly to boost revenue and clear out inventory. Kyle convinced leadership to offer their yearly October fall flash sale to app users a day early.
Again, the app performance left the BYLT team stunned. They initially opened the flash sale to app users 24 hours before the sitewide sale to stunning numbers—and only marketed it to the top 10% of customers the day before. But the app-only sale was so successful that they extended it to 48 hours and pushed the sitewide sale back.
Sales went up 165% year-over-year and 800% period-over-period. In-app AOVs were 30% higher than those of the website, and even the new cohort saw a $30 higher AOV than new shoppers. The app saw 42% of BYLT’s overall revenue for the two days the sale ran.
Here are some of the exciting app stats the BYLT team saw during the sale:
- In-app orders went up 900%
- App installs went up over 500%
- 7,000 installs over 24 hours
The app’s on-screen real estate also drives incremental revenue since the sale with repeat purchases.
The October flash sale has given Kyle and the team the confidence to do it again with even higher stakes—during Black Friday Cyber Monday.
So far, key metrics in the app continue to outpace the website. Website purchasers make an average of 1.8 transactions per year, but in the app, it’s over 3, and LTV is up by 30–40% range. With the app’s speed and ease of use, the path to purchase is much shorter.
Their marketing efficiency score (MER) is improving as well. With costs rising as their SMS and email lists get longer, the app is a much more cost-effective way to reach their customers. They’ve started to exclude app users from their SMS, and email sends and match the cadence with push notifications instead. Now, they’re saving ad dollars and improving their MER as well.
Kyle and the BYLT team are excited to double down on the app moving forward and really see where it will take them.
Chat with our team of mobile experts and we’ll give you a quick walkthrough of the Tapcart platform.
Ready to wow your customers with an elevated mobile experience?
ABOUT THE BRAND
Blending comfort and style in every stitch
Comfort, style, and quality aren’t mutually exclusive, not with BYLT Premium Basics.
The (mostly) DTC men’s and women’s premium apparel brand invests in testing and technology to build the perfect fabric blends that work with their customers’ lifestyles.
The transitional apparel, footwear, and accessories go from the golf course to date night to the office (though not in that order). Since its launch in 2017, the brand has expanded from men’s apparel to include women and even kids.
Bylt launched an app in July of 2023, and we had the pleasure of speaking with Kyle Turadek, Director of Growth, about its skyrocketing success with incremental sales.
THE CHALLENGE
BYLT’s hesitations about the level of effort behind a mobile app
Admittedly, Kyle and the BYLT team had reservations about a mobile app. Since BYLT is mostly a DTC brand, now with a few retail locations in Southern California, they invested heavily in their website and ecommerce experience. With so much time, effort, and content, they were worried they wouldn’t be able to make an app shine as brightly.
But that wasn’t their only reservation. As a lean team, they didn’t want to put the same effort they put into their website into an app experience. Building and managing an app to their standards seemed like it would be too much of a lift for their small and mighty team.
Plus, they couldn’t really see why or if their customers would bother to download an app. These objections made it difficult to convince leadership to put time and effort into building and dedicating marketing resources to an app.
So, what made them return to the idea of a mobile app? Their loyal customers.
BYLT’s quality products drive return rates anywhere from 70 to 80%. They have a very loyal customer base—and before Tapcart, they have nowhere to really give them a VIP experience.
Kyle wanted to improve BYLT’s customer lifetime value (LTV) and give loyal customers a place to connect with the brand, while also minimizing the lift for his team. They needed an app-building platform with the best integration with Shopify that would work with their tech stack.
“If you have that really strong cohort and you have that loyal customer, you owe them that to give them some different experience than the new [customer].”Kyle Turadek, Director of Growth
THE SOLUTION
The app wows customers and is easy to maintain and operationalize for the BYLT team (who doesn't love a win-win?)
With so much time and money invested in their Shopify website, BYLT wanted to ensure the app reflected their brand experience. Yet, they needed to be able to build the app quickly with their lean team—two qualifications that seem like they’re polar opposites.
But with Tapcart, they could build and launch the app in under two weeks.
BYLT is used to spending heavy dev hours on their ecommerce site to make changes and ensure the best experience, but the app doesn’t require the same lift. In fact, the app is light lift for the BYLT team to operationalize and maintain compared to a customized website because Tapcart's solution is headless. The team is able to update the app, test new product features, test new layouts, and get a read on the customer’s reactions without investing too much time. Plus, they can spin up an app-only offer in minutes.
"We’re able to be much more nimble with the app [than with our website] — we can go in and update content and offers much faster. You’re able to increase your amount of campaigns, increase your amount of offers you can get live. If we want to fire up an app only offer, we can do it in minutes."Kyle Turadek, Director of Growth
As easy as it was to put together, the incremental results they saw were truly shocking. To Kyle offering a VIP experience has contributed to the business' mobile success. "We truly are giving our most loyal customers a place for them to have a really different experience than the site: new content, early access to certain products, and app-only products." So while the website is optimized for new customers, the BYLT app strategy is curated to accomodate returning customers and cultivate the highest LTV. To customers, the app delivers a wow factor in a new digital way that leaves a lasting positive impression.
THE RESULTS
$1.4 million in sales and 31K downloads in 60 days
The BYLT app blew away all expectations and predictions. The team hard-launched the app in June with big incremental results.
Within the first 60 days, in-app purchases exceeded $1.4 million. The app was downloaded 31K times, which exceeded Tapcart’s predictions for the entire first year. To top it off, BYLT’s top 30% of customers traditionally spend around $265 over the course of a year. In the app? The LTV trended to $472 in just the first 60 days.
The app was tracking at about 10% of overall sales in the first 90 days—with only marketing in retention channels like email and SMS.
“It just became this constant daily rate of downloads, and now it's become a core part of our business. It's a daily 10% of our site revenue at minimum. And so we can really see that that cohort continues to use the app every single day."Kyle Turadek, Director of Growth
Within a few weeks, BYLT had an answer to their question: customers will absolutely download their app.
At the time of publishing, they still only use retention channels to market the app (although they plan to shift their strategy for BFCM). They offer all new app users a 20% discount and find that it helps them overcome any slight barrier to entry a download might prevent—although they haven’t found any resistance so far.
“We’ve seen the experience not have any barrier to purchase. It works extremely well,” said Kyle. “There’s no data point to look at to tell you otherwise.”
Kyle also knew that the loyal cohort of customers would do well in the app, but what surprised the team was the amount of net new customers that found the app, and their overall stats compared to the website.
Those who first experience BYLT through the app have higher average order values (AOV), higher conversion rates, and higher LTVs than customers ordering on the website. The incremental revenue from new customers made the app a no-brainer. Seeing those results gave the team the confidence to put more marketing effort into the app and take some risks.
Results convince leadership to switch up marketing strategies
As a premium product, BYLT hosts sitewide sales a few times yearly to boost revenue and clear out inventory. Kyle convinced leadership to offer their yearly October fall flash sale to app users a day early.
Again, the app performance left the BYLT team stunned. They initially opened the flash sale to app users 24 hours before the sitewide sale to stunning numbers—and only marketed it to the top 10% of customers the day before. But the app-only sale was so successful that they extended it to 48 hours and pushed the sitewide sale back.
Sales went up 165% year-over-year and 800% period-over-period. In-app AOVs were 30% higher than those of the website, and even the new cohort saw a $30 higher AOV than new shoppers. The app saw 42% of BYLT’s overall revenue for the two days the sale ran.
Here are some of the exciting app stats the BYLT team saw during the sale:
- In-app orders went up 900%
- App installs went up over 500%
- 7,000 installs over 24 hours
The app’s on-screen real estate also drives incremental revenue since the sale with repeat purchases.
The October flash sale has given Kyle and the team the confidence to do it again with even higher stakes—during Black Friday Cyber Monday.
So far, key metrics in the app continue to outpace the website. Website purchasers make an average of 1.8 transactions per year, but in the app, it’s over 3, and LTV is up by 30–40% range. With the app’s speed and ease of use, the path to purchase is much shorter.
Their marketing efficiency score (MER) is improving as well. With costs rising as their SMS and email lists get longer, the app is a much more cost-effective way to reach their customers. They’ve started to exclude app users from their SMS, and email sends and match the cadence with push notifications instead. Now, they’re saving ad dollars and improving their MER as well.
Kyle and the BYLT team are excited to double down on the app moving forward and really see where it will take them.
Chat with our team of mobile experts and we’ll give you a quick walkthrough of the Tapcart platform.
