With HauteLook members increasingly shopping on the go, the company – which is owned by Nordstrom – decided to revamp the app experience with a more visual, faster experience that caters to its consumers. The retailer reports that up to 60 percent of daily member log-ins occur on a mobile device and 40 percent of these take place on the iPhone app.

“The biggest goals for the relaunch were to make the app faster and more streamlined and also update the appearance to make the app more beautiful and consistent with the HauteLook desktop site,” said Mark Geller, head of product for mobile at HauteLook, Los Angeles.

“Having a strong user experience is always important for driving online sales and this is especially true for mobile,” he said.

“When members can access an experience that’s optimized for their device, whether it’s a smartphone or tablet, they are significantly more engaged — they view more events and products and ultimately make more purchases.”

Faster performance
More than 42 percent of HauteLook’s sales revenue is generated by mobile purchases, pointing to how important it is for the retailer to provide a seamless mobile shopping experience for its nearly 13 million members.

With this in mind, the new app features significantly faster performance so users can get in and accomplish what they need to do as quickly as possible.

The redesigned app also features bigger product imagery on the events, catalog and product pages to make it easier for mobile users to review available product from a smartphone’s small screen.

Other new features include a new navigation scheme, branding and coloring that are consistent with the desktop site, a custom-built API and data processing.

In the first week after the release of the new mobile app, HauteLook experienced a 20 percent increase in mobile sales.

Optimized experiences
HauteLook as well as other flash sale retailers continue to experience strong growth in mobile sales.

In March, HauteLook experienced its first day when mobile sales surpassed Web sales, showing how consumer behavior is shifting more toward mobile.

HauteLook offers limited-time, limited-inventory sale events starting at 8 a.m. Pacific time each day.

HauteLook is looking at making similar updates to the Android app and at continuing to make additional improvement to the iOS app as well.

“The role of mobile at HauteLook is constantly growing as members spend more of their time on phones and tablets compared to the desktop,” Mr. Geller said.

“Since mobile now accounts for more than half of all HauteLook log-ins and will account for more than half of all sales later this year, we are now considering how we can optimize the entire HauteLook experience – from member acquisition to engagement, sales and retention – for members who may choose to access HauteLook primarily or even completely on phones and tablets,” he said.

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York