Lingerie is going local and mobile.
Lingerie and apparel retailer Fleur du Mal has launched a mobile commerce site that uses geolocation to provide consumers at one of the brand’s local pop-up stores with a customized site that differs from the one other mobile visitors see. A pop-up store is a temporary bricks-and-mortar location, where a retailer rents a vacant storefront and sets up shop with limited merchandise. Fleur du Mal is planning to test pop-up stores around the country and globally in locations including Tokyo. The retailer is using the pop-up stores to help decide whether it wants to open permanent stores.
Fleur du Mal used m-commerce technology provider Usablenet to build the site, which took about 10 weeks to complete. Using a geolocation feature in Usablenet’s U-Control content management tool, Fleur du Mal can serve different content to mobile users who are near or in a pop-up store. Pop-up store managers can change the site for their stores, for example, by featuring special sales and promotions, pictures from the specific store and social content, such as Facebook and Instagram updates related specifically to that store.
Beyond customizing what the mobile shopper sees, Fleur du Mal employees also can use U-Control to quickly modify the general mobile site and change elements like images, navigation and promotions without needing to have technical expertise.
“Our brand is all about inspiring a very intimate experience, and we sought to create a mobile identity that enables our customer to have a great relationship with the brand,” says Jennifer Zuccarini, founder of Fleur du Mal. “Usablenet enabled us to create a mobile experience we can strategically use to drive engagement on our customers’ most personal device: their mobile phones.”
About 21% of the retailer’s web traffic comes from mobile devices, and Fleur du Mal expects this to increase with the launch of its dedicated mobile site. 80% of mobile traffic comes from Apple devices—iPhone represents about 60% and iPad is 40%. 20% of mobile traffic comes from Android and other mobile devices.
Other features of the site include a love list that users can store on their phone where they can save items they are interested in purchasing and the ability for shoppers to share items and site content via Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest.
Usablenet chief marketing officer Carin van Vuuren says mobile sites such as Fleur du Mal’s typically cost between $75,000 and $100,000 to build, depending on the scope and complexity of the site.
Fleur du Mal is also currently working with Usablenet on a tablet site slated for release later this year. Usablenet customers include apparel retailers J. Crew and Aeropostale.