Tadashi Shoji is a luxury fashion brand from the designer of the same name, known for elegant evening wear and bridal collections.
Luxury fashion brand Tadashi Shoji knew their mobile users needed more than just the browser experience.
With a lean dev team and most traffic coming from mobile Safari, they chose MobiLoud to launch a mobile app that mirrors their website, while delivering 10x more revenue per user than mobile web.
With zero dev overhead post-launch and full design control, their custom app now contributes 18% of total sales and is a hit across the company.
Snapshot
Vertical: Luxury Fashion
Platform: Magento
Key Metrics:
- 18% of total online revenue (30% of mobile revenue) now comes through the app
- 10x revenue per app user vs mobile web
- App drives 3x more revenue per user than desktop
- 8.3x higher conversion rate in the app vs mobile web
- 3.8x session frequency for app users vs mobile web
- 2x average session duration in app vs web
Business Impact:
- Full parity with website, plus unique app-only UX improvements
- Zero ongoing maintenance for the dev team
- Leadership team thrilled with the result
“Because we're using an app, we have the ability to leverage native device features and capabilities that are not available to a web browser.”
- David Chamberlin, Lead Developer
The Roadblock
Tadashi Shoji had a problem shared by many ecommerce brands today.
Most of their users were browsing on mobile, yet the mobile browser experience didn’t deliver the smooth, high-end feel their brand was known for.
Their lead developer, David Chamberlin, had experience building native mobile apps. But like any ecommerce brand, they ran with a lean IT team and were limited in the resources needed to effectively manage or maintain native apps for their primary online store.
“At first, we explored the viability of building our own native apps from the ground up. And while that was achievable, managing them effectively moving forward would not have been feasible due to the disconnected nature of such an approach.”
They needed a way to deliver a better mobile experience, but without doubling their dev workload and creating a major project to manage.
Why They Chose MobiLoud
After evaluating native app builds and other approaches, Tadashi Shoji chose MobiLoud for its “lightweight but real” native app framework.
The appeal wasn’t just speed or affordability. It was how seamlessly MobiLoud would extend their website into a high-performing native app, without code duplication.
Crucially, MobiLoud gave the Tadashi team the flexibility to control the app experience. From branding to navigation to UX, David was able to adjust the website to deliver a superior experience inside the app – without disrupting the web experience.
Launch & Results
The app launched successfully and quickly impressed both leadership and customers.
“Everyone in management loves it. Tadashi [Shoji] himself saw the app and was thrilled.”
Tadashi Shoji now sees 18% of total revenue come through the app, a strong showing for a new channel. Nearly a third of all mobile revenue is on the app.
Most importantly, the app outperforms all other channels in revenue per user, with average revenue per user more than 10x higher on the app vs the mobile web, and 4x higher than desktop.
App users are shopping more often, shopping for longer, and converting at more than 8x the rate of mobile web users – a major revenue lever for a luxury brand like Tadashi Shoji.
Best of all, our approach let them build an app that fully conveyed their brand’s image.
Even with a lean team, they were able to implement custom UI improvements inside the app using web code, enabled by MobiLoud’s app-aware variables.
“I could continue developing the way I am used to. It was completely frictionless for me. I really have to applaud Mobiloud for being so compatible so that we were able to do that.”
The Takeaway
Tadashi Shoji proves that you don’t need a big IT team to launch a beautiful, high-performing mobile app.
With MobiLoud, they launched an app that delighted their leadership and customers alike, without needing to hire mobile developers or split their focus.
“If you’re a small ecom company that needs a lightweight mobile app solution, MobiLoud’s the answer.”
Want results like Tadashi Shoji?
If your mobile website is fast and responsive, you’re already 90% of the way towards having your own, branded mobile app.
Get a free preview of your app to see how MobiLoud can turn your mobile website into a 5-star app – without the dev overhead.
Tadashi Shoji is a luxury fashion brand from the designer of the same name, known for elegant evening wear and bridal collections.
