Impact Wholesale is a Bay Area-based supplier of business supplies, largely serving restaurants and offices around the US.
B2B retailer Impact Wholesale was looking for a way to elevate their business. That way was to launch an app, making their ordering process more streamlined, increasing retention and building long-term professional relationships with their customers.
The problem was their technical team had no experience in app development. They needed a way to build and maintain their app that wouldn’t take extensive work or investment. That’s where MobiLoud came in.
About Impact Wholesale
Bay Area-based Impact is one of the industry leaders in the US for providing quality and cost effective point of sale, cash register, ATM, and printer supplies to customers in the retail industry.
Impact provides products like paper and toner, carryout containers, gloves, napkins, straws, cleaning supplies and more. For a business like this, ease of ordering for the customer is vital, as Impact wants it to be simple and stress-free any time a retailer needs to re-up on supplies.
That’s what brought them to the decision to launch an app.
The Challenge
Developer Mitch Free outlined why launching an app was not exactly straightforward for their technical team.
“We've primarily been WordPress focused, and I've always been focused mostly on websites and marketing and I never really got into the app side of things because it just wasn't something I could plug into from day one.”
App development is not something you can learn with a 2-week crash course. Their team was skilled in building and running websites, not apps.
To launch an app, they would either need to spend big on hiring outside developers, or find another solution.
The Solution
Not wanting to dive into the expensive mire of hiring and managing app developers, Mitch went looking for simpler solutions.
Some options just seemed too good to be true, offering the ability to create an app for relative pennies. While he was looking for something affordable, the incredibly low price point was a red flag.
“I don't remember the name of it, but I remember it was too cheap. It was going to be about $10 a month with $50 upfront. I was like, yeah, I don't think I'm going to get much for that.”
Then Mitch found the ideal solution in our tech-enabled service, MobiLoud.
We offered a way to turn their website into an app, converting everything they have to the app while maintaining only one back end.
“Turning our website into an app was perfect for us because it meant managing just one store, but being able to say we have an app and connect with customers who wanted an app experience.”
All this came at an affordable, but realistic price point which, combined with our extensive collection of case studies, was enough to give Mitch the confidence to move forward with the project.
Results
Though it’s still early days for their app, they’ve got a rating of 4.8 out of 5 on the App Store, with all but one of their reviews giving the app a 5 star rating. Impact customers clearly love the app, which means the company loves it too.
The company loves what they get from their app, which does everything the website does, but in a way that builds a stronger relationship with their customers.
“Having an app staring at them on their phone screen versus having to type in a URL, it's just a lot stickier.”
Behind the scenes, managing their app is easy, despite having zero app experience in-house, with the above and beyond service they get from the MobiLoud team.
“You guys have supported us anytime we've had an issue, and you’re quick to fix it or address it or make whatever tweaks we need to make. I feel like that's a big part of what you bring to the table.”
Why You’re Almost Guaranteed a Positive ROI with MobiLoud
Traditionally, building a mobile app has been extremely risky. With custom apps costing as much as a hundred thousand dollars or more, you had to be sure the app would make a massive impact on your business to be confident you’re going to get a positive ROI.
With MobiLoud, that risk is almost non-existent. It can cost less than four figures upfront to launch your app, with minimal effort required and a time frame of less than a month from start to finish.
You only need a minimal increase in business from the app to end up in the positive, and realistically most eCommerce stores will get a much bigger return than that.
“If you have the client base built up and you have enough traffic and customers, then the monthly fee [for MobiLoud] is going to be irrelevant because if you do the app right, it's gonna pay you back a hundred times that, easy.”
If you’ve got an eCommerce store making steady revenue, there’s virtually zero downside to launching your own app with MobiLoud. You’ll boost your brand authority, get access to the full power of push notifications and increase key metrics like average order value, conversion rate and retention - all for a negligible investment.
To see what’s possible with MobiLoud, use our Preview Tool to generate a free, interactive preview of your site as an app in just a few seconds.
If you’re ready to learn more about how it works, get in touch with us now to schedule a personalized demo.
Start building a more authoritative and resilient brand with MobiLoud.
Impact Wholesale is a Bay Area-based supplier of business supplies, largely serving restaurants and offices around the US.
