ABOUT THE BRAND
Oh Polly is a major player in women’s fashion and all over your social media feed
Oh Polly is one of the world’s largest pure-play fashion retailers, bringing trend-driven designs to women all around the world. Ranked as the fifth-most engaged social media brand in the United Kingdom, the company has a combined following of over five million people. And, in the business' own words, Oh Polly prides itself on being the brand that “everyone turns to when buying something that's a ‘little bit extra.’"
With collections and collaborations that sell out in a flash and an influencer-bolstered omnipresence that’s a permanent fixture on all our social media feeds, there’s perhaps no better brand to underscore the importance of standing out from the pack and staying top of mind as your customers decide between buying from you and your competitors.
Recently, we chatted with Oh Polly’s Lauren Muir, who serves as the brand’s Product Owner. She’s solely responsible for the brand’s tech and development roadmaps and all associated work. Lauren works closely with teams at Shopify and Tapcart. She also manages the team’s tech stack partnerships with other integrations like Algolia, Nosto, Okendo, Loyalty Lion, and more.
Lauren gave us the lowdown on why Oh Polly is all-in on its mobile app and why it’s been essential in transforming fleeting, first-time buyers into lifelong customers. She also told us all about how, in exchange for real estate on their customers’ home screens (and ultra-engaging free push notifications), Oh Polly has happily rewarded VIP customers with an instant checkout process, tons of app-exclusive discounts, and early access to launches, sales, and more.
THE CHALLENGE
Oh Polly wanted an app to make shopping quick, easy, and enjoyable — and retain customers from the start
When we chatted with Lauren, she was the first to admit Oh Polly’s customers were going to be considering (and spending money with) other brands. Lauren herself has a shopping folder for her favorite companies’ apps on her phone. The way she sees it, having an app keeps your brand top of mind…and right on your customers’ screens where they’re already spending hours and hours a day. Having an app icon or a push notification pop up on the lock screen is an incredibly valuable touchpoint.
But if there’s no app, then all those customers shopping the apps on their phones aren’t shopping your brand or even being reminded of it. And Oh Polly didn’t want that. Still, brand awareness was just the bare minimum. Presence alone wasn’t enough, and it’s why Oh Polly wanted a seamless, effortless CX that aligned with modern consumers’ high expectations for mobile shopping.
“I want a really seamless and easy mobile experience: an app that isn’t difficult or glitchy and doesn’t take forever to load. As a result, customers are happy and able to checkout easily because they have the payment methods they want, a wishlist, and saved account information, all of which remove any friction to purchase.”
Lauren Muir, Product Owner
Lauren went on to say that, unlike shopping on a website, shopping on a mobile app isn’t distracting or full of pop-ups or Google ads. Instead, customers get exactly what they (literally) signed up for when they downloaded your app: the cleanest, fastest shopping experience possible — and one that’s immersive, elevated, and ready for them, too.
Like many other brands, Oh Polly had heard horror stories about companies that chose to develop a custom-built app. Oh Polly already has a highly customized website to which it devotes tons of resources (and works with dedicated experts and agencies) to get the best results. One of the reasons the company loves Tapcart is how well its Shopify-integrated apps worked “right out of the box.”
Once Oh Polly’s mobile app was up and running, the brand set itself up for success and reaped the rewards. Keep reading to find out how.
THE SOLUTION
Oh Polly’s app attracts customers right away with app-only discounts, then keeps them engaged with exclusive early access
A mobile app offers Oh Polly a way to ensure first-time shoppers who might otherwise disappear stay close to the brand instead. After all, if new customers don’t opt-in to email or SMS, how do you keep in touch? By following up immediately post-purchase and incentivizing an app download with discounts, these new customers stay within Oh Polly’s reach — and can be retained via push notifications and app exclusives for years to come.
“Throughout the customer journey, we've tried to think of different touchpoints to encourage the consumer to check out the app. For example, in our Black Friday Sale, we offer customers an up to 60% off sale on site, plus an extra 10% off if they shop on the app. We're trying to get people into the app journey as early as possible because we know we have a better chance of retaining them once they're there.”
Lauren Muir, Product Owner
To get more customers to download the app, Oh Polly is very vocal about its vast and noteworthy app-exclusive offerings. For example, the brand launches every collection in the app first at least an hour early…and sometimes even 24 hours early. The same goes for sales and promotions.
Oh Polly will often use the app for exclusive promotions, allowing app customers to stack an additional discount on sale pricing. These exclusives are advertised globally to drive app adoption through email, paid social and influencer marketing, paid search, and more. Those who already have the app can access push notifications and reap the benefits of this instant communication channel to take advantage of these exclusives.
According to Lauren, Oh Polly sees its relationship with app customers as a give-and-take. It's a retention tool for the brand and a reward tool for the customer. It's one of the things that makes the investment in an app so worthwhile, and it's why Oh Polly has prioritized the channel and made it a destination for exclusive incentives. It's also why app downloads and push subscribers are so valuable: the brand gets so much from them, but the customers get so much in return.
“We need the app because it gives us better customer engagement. Push notifications keep customers coming back to our brand. We drive app downloads with a give-and-take method: the customers get rewards like discounts, exclusives, and VIP treatment on product releases.”
Lauren Muir, Product Owner
Oh Polly is also a firm believer in the integrations offered by Tapcart. In fact, Lauren told us that when considering what technology to invest in, the brand will only consider solutions that integrate with Tapcart. It's a nonnegotiable for them.
This is in part because so much of Oh Polly’s customer base uses the app to shop, search, and more. With 40% of its customers using the platform, the team need to get the most out of their investment and ensure customers have a great, frictionless search experience within the app itself. As a result, the Tapcart integrations that make search functionality even better are critical for the Oh Polly team.
Same goes for so many other customer retention and CX requirements. Lauren needs her customers to be able to use the app to view favorite products, redeem loyalty points, and more. Tapcart integrations like Loyalty Lion make this possible and increase the app’s ROI while boosting operational efficiency.
After all, Lauren said, if driving customers to an app that didn’t work well and didn’t offer all the bells and whistles, she’d simply drive traffic to the website instead. The right integrations have helped create in-app CX that leaves VIP customers satisfied and spending.
THE RESULTS
Oh Polly has sent +400M push notifications that drive brand awareness, engagement, and revenue — at no extra cost
Today, Oh Polly relies on push notifications as a free, effective, and reliable way to drive its 1.3M push subscribers to the app, where 40% of its revenue now comes from. And, of course, Oh Polly continues to use layered, app-exclusive incentives to drive customers to sales and launches in droves.
One good example is the brand's Black Friday sale. "For BFCM, the company doesn't offer massive additional discounts on the app, only around an extra 10% off. But that's more than enough incentive because what really matters is that app customers get early access to the sale. By the time the promotion hits the website, a lot of the top picks are sold out and size availability has reduced massively.
Plus, Oh Polly can communicate with its customers confidently with push notifications. Unlike SMS and email, which can be missed or filtered away by email providers, customers see push notifications right on their home screens.
In fact, Lauren reported that Oh Polly has received complaints from customers who missed a promotion or a sold-out launch. These shoppers either didn't see the email or were so distracted by the influx of emails they did receive they couldn't identify it as important and get to the sale soon enough.
“With push notifications customers get information instantly. We can assure customers, ‘If you want to be the first to know when this is going live and get it before anyone else, just get the app and turn on push notifications.’ We've never had complaints about push notifications.”
Lauren Muir, Product Owner
Another reason Oh Polly loves push notifications so much? The brand sends so many of them. According to Lauren, they have sent a push notification almost every day and the open rate for push notifications is significantly higher than email open rates. Sometimes, they're automated, and sometimes, they're more stylized and complex.
Since Oh Polly is an international brand with regional apps for the countries it serves [Oh Polly AU, US, UK, AE, and Bo+Tee (UK)], it has been able to begin segmenting and timing push notifications based on where customers live. This has improved its engagement results.
But regardless of how Oh Polly decides to customize and time its push notifications, the bottom line is that the brand believes in them. The way Lauren sees it, a customer doesn't even need to click on the push notification for it to be a win. After all, it's all about brand awareness — about real estate on the home screen and those regular reminders. A push notification is a way to remain in the conversation, especially in an industry as saturated as womenswear.
The fact that push notifications are free is the icing on the cake. And yes, Oh Polly has done the math on the estimated 400M push notifications it has sent. Calculating how much those messages may have cost them via SMS is hard for Lauren to even fathom.
“If you've got an app, it'd be a waste not to use free push notifications like we've been. If you want to get on someone's phone, push notifications are the cheapest way to interact with an engaged audience.”
Lauren Muir, Product Owner
Ready to wow your customers with an elevated mobile experience?
ABOUT THE BRAND
Oh Polly is a major player in women’s fashion and all over your social media feed
Oh Polly is one of the world’s largest pure-play fashion retailers, bringing trend-driven designs to women all around the world. Ranked as the fifth-most engaged social media brand in the United Kingdom, the company has a combined following of over five million people. And, in the business' own words, Oh Polly prides itself on being the brand that “everyone turns to when buying something that's a ‘little bit extra.’"
With collections and collaborations that sell out in a flash and an influencer-bolstered omnipresence that’s a permanent fixture on all our social media feeds, there’s perhaps no better brand to underscore the importance of standing out from the pack and staying top of mind as your customers decide between buying from you and your competitors.
Recently, we chatted with Oh Polly’s Lauren Muir, who serves as the brand’s Product Owner. She’s solely responsible for the brand’s tech and development roadmaps and all associated work. Lauren works closely with teams at Shopify and Tapcart. She also manages the team’s tech stack partnerships with other integrations like Algolia, Nosto, Okendo, Loyalty Lion, and more.
Lauren gave us the lowdown on why Oh Polly is all-in on its mobile app and why it’s been essential in transforming fleeting, first-time buyers into lifelong customers. She also told us all about how, in exchange for real estate on their customers’ home screens (and ultra-engaging free push notifications), Oh Polly has happily rewarded VIP customers with an instant checkout process, tons of app-exclusive discounts, and early access to launches, sales, and more.
THE CHALLENGE
Oh Polly wanted an app to make shopping quick, easy, and enjoyable — and retain customers from the start
When we chatted with Lauren, she was the first to admit Oh Polly’s customers were going to be considering (and spending money with) other brands. Lauren herself has a shopping folder for her favorite companies’ apps on her phone. The way she sees it, having an app keeps your brand top of mind…and right on your customers’ screens where they’re already spending hours and hours a day. Having an app icon or a push notification pop up on the lock screen is an incredibly valuable touchpoint.
But if there’s no app, then all those customers shopping the apps on their phones aren’t shopping your brand or even being reminded of it. And Oh Polly didn’t want that. Still, brand awareness was just the bare minimum. Presence alone wasn’t enough, and it’s why Oh Polly wanted a seamless, effortless CX that aligned with modern consumers’ high expectations for mobile shopping.
“I want a really seamless and easy mobile experience: an app that isn’t difficult or glitchy and doesn’t take forever to load. As a result, customers are happy and able to checkout easily because they have the payment methods they want, a wishlist, and saved account information, all of which remove any friction to purchase.”
Lauren Muir, Product Owner
Lauren went on to say that, unlike shopping on a website, shopping on a mobile app isn’t distracting or full of pop-ups or Google ads. Instead, customers get exactly what they (literally) signed up for when they downloaded your app: the cleanest, fastest shopping experience possible — and one that’s immersive, elevated, and ready for them, too.
Like many other brands, Oh Polly had heard horror stories about companies that chose to develop a custom-built app. Oh Polly already has a highly customized website to which it devotes tons of resources (and works with dedicated experts and agencies) to get the best results. One of the reasons the company loves Tapcart is how well its Shopify-integrated apps worked “right out of the box.”
Once Oh Polly’s mobile app was up and running, the brand set itself up for success and reaped the rewards. Keep reading to find out how.
THE SOLUTION
Oh Polly’s app attracts customers right away with app-only discounts, then keeps them engaged with exclusive early access
A mobile app offers Oh Polly a way to ensure first-time shoppers who might otherwise disappear stay close to the brand instead. After all, if new customers don’t opt-in to email or SMS, how do you keep in touch? By following up immediately post-purchase and incentivizing an app download with discounts, these new customers stay within Oh Polly’s reach — and can be retained via push notifications and app exclusives for years to come.
“Throughout the customer journey, we've tried to think of different touchpoints to encourage the consumer to check out the app. For example, in our Black Friday Sale, we offer customers an up to 60% off sale on site, plus an extra 10% off if they shop on the app. We're trying to get people into the app journey as early as possible because we know we have a better chance of retaining them once they're there.”
Lauren Muir, Product Owner
To get more customers to download the app, Oh Polly is very vocal about its vast and noteworthy app-exclusive offerings. For example, the brand launches every collection in the app first at least an hour early…and sometimes even 24 hours early. The same goes for sales and promotions.
Oh Polly will often use the app for exclusive promotions, allowing app customers to stack an additional discount on sale pricing. These exclusives are advertised globally to drive app adoption through email, paid social and influencer marketing, paid search, and more. Those who already have the app can access push notifications and reap the benefits of this instant communication channel to take advantage of these exclusives.
According to Lauren, Oh Polly sees its relationship with app customers as a give-and-take. It's a retention tool for the brand and a reward tool for the customer. It's one of the things that makes the investment in an app so worthwhile, and it's why Oh Polly has prioritized the channel and made it a destination for exclusive incentives. It's also why app downloads and push subscribers are so valuable: the brand gets so much from them, but the customers get so much in return.
“We need the app because it gives us better customer engagement. Push notifications keep customers coming back to our brand. We drive app downloads with a give-and-take method: the customers get rewards like discounts, exclusives, and VIP treatment on product releases.”
Lauren Muir, Product Owner
Oh Polly is also a firm believer in the integrations offered by Tapcart. In fact, Lauren told us that when considering what technology to invest in, the brand will only consider solutions that integrate with Tapcart. It's a nonnegotiable for them.
This is in part because so much of Oh Polly’s customer base uses the app to shop, search, and more. With 40% of its customers using the platform, the team need to get the most out of their investment and ensure customers have a great, frictionless search experience within the app itself. As a result, the Tapcart integrations that make search functionality even better are critical for the Oh Polly team.
Same goes for so many other customer retention and CX requirements. Lauren needs her customers to be able to use the app to view favorite products, redeem loyalty points, and more. Tapcart integrations like Loyalty Lion make this possible and increase the app’s ROI while boosting operational efficiency.
After all, Lauren said, if driving customers to an app that didn’t work well and didn’t offer all the bells and whistles, she’d simply drive traffic to the website instead. The right integrations have helped create in-app CX that leaves VIP customers satisfied and spending.
THE RESULTS
Oh Polly has sent +400M push notifications that drive brand awareness, engagement, and revenue — at no extra cost
Today, Oh Polly relies on push notifications as a free, effective, and reliable way to drive its 1.3M push subscribers to the app, where 40% of its revenue now comes from. And, of course, Oh Polly continues to use layered, app-exclusive incentives to drive customers to sales and launches in droves.
One good example is the brand's Black Friday sale. "For BFCM, the company doesn't offer massive additional discounts on the app, only around an extra 10% off. But that's more than enough incentive because what really matters is that app customers get early access to the sale. By the time the promotion hits the website, a lot of the top picks are sold out and size availability has reduced massively.
Plus, Oh Polly can communicate with its customers confidently with push notifications. Unlike SMS and email, which can be missed or filtered away by email providers, customers see push notifications right on their home screens.
In fact, Lauren reported that Oh Polly has received complaints from customers who missed a promotion or a sold-out launch. These shoppers either didn't see the email or were so distracted by the influx of emails they did receive they couldn't identify it as important and get to the sale soon enough.
“With push notifications customers get information instantly. We can assure customers, ‘If you want to be the first to know when this is going live and get it before anyone else, just get the app and turn on push notifications.’ We've never had complaints about push notifications.”
Lauren Muir, Product Owner
Another reason Oh Polly loves push notifications so much? The brand sends so many of them. According to Lauren, they have sent a push notification almost every day and the open rate for push notifications is significantly higher than email open rates. Sometimes, they're automated, and sometimes, they're more stylized and complex.
Since Oh Polly is an international brand with regional apps for the countries it serves [Oh Polly AU, US, UK, AE, and Bo+Tee (UK)], it has been able to begin segmenting and timing push notifications based on where customers live. This has improved its engagement results.
But regardless of how Oh Polly decides to customize and time its push notifications, the bottom line is that the brand believes in them. The way Lauren sees it, a customer doesn't even need to click on the push notification for it to be a win. After all, it's all about brand awareness — about real estate on the home screen and those regular reminders. A push notification is a way to remain in the conversation, especially in an industry as saturated as womenswear.
The fact that push notifications are free is the icing on the cake. And yes, Oh Polly has done the math on the estimated 400M push notifications it has sent. Calculating how much those messages may have cost them via SMS is hard for Lauren to even fathom.
“If you've got an app, it'd be a waste not to use free push notifications like we've been. If you want to get on someone's phone, push notifications are the cheapest way to interact with an engaged audience.”
Lauren Muir, Product Owner
