Flash-sale apparel e-retailer Jackthreads is having an amazing 2013 when it comes to mobile commerce. The merchant has shared with Internet Retailer a snapshot of m-commerce today and some projections for the year. At Jackthreads:
- 68% of total traffic comes from mobile devices—62% from smartphones and 6% from tablets.
- 50% of total sales stem from mobile devices—89% of mobile sales from smartphones and 11% from tablets.
- 90% of mobile sales come through its iPhone, iPad and Android apps (most through the iPhone app, downloaded more than 1 million times) while 10% comes through its smartphone m-commerce site and its e-commerce site on tablets.
- Mobile sales will grow 357% from $8.1 million in 2012 to $37.0 million in 2013.
Flash-sale e-retailers are among the most successful retailers in mobile, according to the Internet Retailer Mobile 400. Sales are time-sensitive and quantities are limited, so customers have to react quickly, no matter where they might be when a sale starts. So flash-sale site fans often access the merchant through mobile devices so that they can get in on the sale no matter the time or their location.
What’s noteworthy, however, is that Jackthreads isn’t selling digital goods or books or DVDs, products that lend themselves to mobile buying because one copy of a given book figures to be identical to the next and fit is not an issue. Instead, Jackthreads sells apparel, which shows how mobile consumers are increasingly buying the same kinds of products via mobile that they buy via desktop. The average order value for smartphone shoppers at Jackthreads is $63 and the average order value for tablet shoppers is $75, the merchant tells Internet Retailer.
“The biggest factor behind our 357% growth is that the mobile experience we’re providing our customers is just really damn good,” says Jason Ross, founder and CEO of Jackthreads, which is owned by Thrillist Media Group. “Our app has a really simple design and provides a great user experience. Many other brands try to cram all the features of their web site into their app experience—we only introduce features and functionality that are essential to signing up and making a purchase. Users don’t need bells and whistles in mobile, they just need a clean, easy way to buy with just a few taps.”
Ross adds that another factor behind Jackthreads’ success in mobile commerce is the mobile mindset of its key customers.
“We can also attribute a great deal of our success to the fact that our demographic aligns perfectly with the mobile-first mentality of Millennials,” he says. The Millennial Generation includes people born from the early 1980s through the early 2000s. “The data tells us that users who buy on multiple screens have a 60% higher lifetime value than their single-screen counterparts. As a result, getting the app into the hands of as many existing users as possible has been a big priority.”
Jackthreads has pushed adoption of the app on its web site and in e-mails, as well as through ads in Jackthreads customers’ Facebook news feeds.
“We are finding an incremental audience with the app, people that never discovered us on the web,” Ross says. “Mobile has also been the primary device our international users have adopted; we are currently shipping to Canada, Australia and the U.K.”
Ross adds that the Jackthreads app has been downloaded about 350,000 times a month in 2013.