Ideeli Case Study
The fastest growing company in the U.S. builds a leading mobile and tablet web presence to increase sales and customer acquisition in the exploding private-sale business.
The Problem
Ideeli launched in 2006. They evolved their business model over the following years and emerged as a leading private-sale, e-commerce business where specific items went on sale with limited inventory to a private audience of members.
By 2010, Ideeli’s success had driven enormous growth and expansion.
Inc. magazine named Ideeli the fastest-growing private company in the U.S. in 2010.
By the middle of 2011, Ideeli were hosting more than a dozen new sales every day. They were one of the fastest growing online retailers with more than 5-million members and over 7,000 sale events.
“We put up a new store every day,” CEO Paul Hurley said to describe the business.
Key drivers for Ideeli’s business were email alerts and social media sharing on Facebook. The consistent and key factor for Ideeli and their members to succeed was timeliness – their private sales started at noon EST every day and often sold out quickly.
Ideeli members needed to be able to learn about the private sales and take action – fast!
Ideeli members also wanted to see full product details, decide on whether to purchase the product and have the option to share with friends through social media like Facebook. Ideeli members needed to be able to do all of this from any location because they couldn't predict where they might find themselves when the sale opened.
In addition, Ideeli had 2 large technical requirements for their mobile solution: it needed to integrate with their complex desktop website built on the Backbone.js JavaScript framework and it needed to work well with the Ideeli iPhone, Android and iPad apps.
Lastly, Ideeli had 3 specific requirements of what they did not want in a mobile solution.
- They did not want to be tied to a specific mobile platform or operating system, as they would be with an app.
- They did not want a new, separate workflow for their members’ mobile commerce experience.
- They did not want to have to worry about synchronizing product inventory and availability across their business channels: desktop web and mobile web.
Ideeli needed a mobile platform flexible enough to accommodate these requirements and scalable to power them to world-clase e-commerce success.
Before
The Solution
Ideeli chose to work with Mobify because the Mobify Platform and One Web approach provided the perfect fit for their business needs.
The One Web approach ensured Ideeli an integrated web experience for all members no matter what device they used and always delivered through the well-branded Ideeli.com domain.
Ideeli members, wherever they wanted to shop and through whatever devices they wanted to use, could shop on Ideeli.com with a full-featured, rich and amazing experience that lived up to the Ideeli brand values.
The key drivers for Ideeli’s business – email alerts and social network sharing through Facebook – integrated perfectly with the Mobify Platform. Every link in an email or shared items on a social network always worked.
The need of Ideeli members to take action fast worked perfectly. Emails arrived on their mobile device and they could take full action on Ideeli.com immediately.
Ideeli's integration with Facebook extended to a single-sign on interface on mobile and desktop. Members could sign up or sign in to Ideeli with their Facebook account and then easily share with friends through one-click Facebook Connect.
Ideeli’s technical requirements were solved through the Mobify.js JavaScript framework. It provided a fully adaptive Ideeli.com for mobile devices without affecting Ideeli.com for desktop devices.
With the One Web approach, Ideeli.com works on all mobile devices and is not tied to any specific mobile platform or operating system.
Ideeli members enjoy the same proven e-commerce experience, tailored to their mobile device. Ideeli.com on mobile works in all the ways Ideeli members browse the web – through email, search engines and social media.
On the backend, Ideeli has no additional operational costs or workflows to invest in for going mobile. They simply have a new channel for new revenues. Their analytics, reporting and workflows all remain integrated across devices.
Inventory for Ideeli sale items remains controlled through a single system that’s always synchronized across their desktop and mobile websites. Paths for specific products work on every device because of the Mobify Platform's URL parity.
To Ideeli customers, the experience is seamless. To the Ideeli team, the experience is seamless.
Ideeli is an excellent demonstration of the power of the Mobify Platform to evolve website so they adapt to any device and provide an amazing customer experience.
Update: Ideeli Tablet Commerce
Following the success of its mobile commerce experience on the Mobify Platform, Ideeli wanted to target tablet devices like the iPad with a customized tablet commerce experience.
Using the Mobify Platform, building for a tablet and iPad experience was simple, fast and required no changes to the desktop or mobile web experiences.
The following video provides some highlights of the Ideeli tablet experience, all delivered through Ideeli.com, with consistent URLs and the One Web approach.
Now anyone visiting Ideeli.com on iPad and tablets experiences enhanced functionality specific to their device.
“ Ideeli’s technical requirements were solved through the Mobify.js JavaScript framework. It provided a fully adaptive Ideeli.com for mobile devices without affecting Ideeli.com for desktop devices.
After
The Results
Since launching on mobile Ideeli's business success has been astonishing.
Year-over-year from 2010 to 2011:
- 226% increase in mobile revenues
- 182% increase in mobile traffic
- 563% increase in Ideeli member acquisitions
Ideeli's investment in their mobile web experience delivered an ROI in 22-days from launch.
Ideeli also uncovered some outstanding and unexpected results with their best customers.
The top 10% of Ideeli customers (based on purchases) are the top visitors to Ideeli.com on mobile.
Going mobile with Mobify meant that Ideeli were able to serve their best customers with the best integrated and consistent experience.
Make the next case study about your success.