Mobile is a cornerstone of the Fab experience. It is not an understatement to say that Fab is a breakout mobile retailer. Each day 30% of Fab’s sales comes from our mobile apps on iPhone, iPad, and Android devices. During some day-parts we see 50% of our sale come through our apps. We even had two days in the last 30 days where the entire days we saw more mobile revenue than pc mobile. That compares to 10% mobile sales for most e-commerce companies.
Our formula for building a great mobile retail experience is:
- Build mobile first. For nearly a year now, we’ve been designing and building new Features for Fab’s mobile users first, and then taking those features to the web. Building mobile-first forces us to think about how Fab will be used by people on the go first, and people at their desks second. We’re now in a rapid development cycle on Fab mobile, updating our app with new features and usability improvements every few weeks.
- Keep it simple. Our mobile UX philosophy is to just get out of the way. We try to make it as simple and easy as possible for our members to discover the Fab products. The functionality of our apps is intended to just fade into the background, not occupy the foreground. It’s not about us. It’s about the products.
- Build mobile experiences, not mobile shopping. Yes, Fab is a retailer. But our entire mobile experience is designed more for browsing and discovery than it is for buying. We want people to want to take their mobile out of their pocket hourly just to see what’s hot on Fab right now. We believe that if people enjoy browsing and discovering on Fab, plenty of sales will happen over time.
For my fellow business numbers geeks, here’s some additional data on Fab mobile:
- Fab’s mobile customers purchase 20% more items per order than our web customers.
- Fab’s mobile customers also have much higher lifetime value.
So, with that, we just released a set of new features for the Fab App.
Navigation-less browsing. As the Fab member scrolls on the app, the navigation elements fade away so that they user can focus entirely on the Fab products.
Steady-state.
Browsing (Nav elements fade away).
Dramatically improved search, browse, and filtering.
Search, browse, and filter by product type or color.
Sort by Price, Best Selling, Most Faved, Availability.
Bookmark your faves and purchases with your own new Fab profile.
Here you see my profile which shows all of the items I’ve Faved and Purchased. Yes, I really did buy the unicorn poop!
As always, we’re still just getting started. More improvements coming regularly to the Fab App.
