Dive Brief:

• Pacific Sunwear of California (PacSun) has partnered with PredictSpring to launch a new mobile app that includes, among other capabilities, an Instagram Shop-the-Look feature allowing app users to shop the specialty retailer’s Instagram feed, according to a PredictSpring press release.

• The new app also integrates with PacSun’s customer loyalty program, enabling program members to view and manage their myGSOM REWARDS points and activity. The app also offers users access to wishlists and a store locator, and incorporates push and geo-fenced notifications to keep customers engaged and drive purchases via the app and in-store. In addition, the app integrates with PacSun’s Salesforce Commerce Cloud implementation, according to the release.

• Eugene Lai, director of digital at PacSun, was quoted in the press release as saying that the new app has allowed the retailer to increase its app revenue by 45.8% between July 2016 and July 2017.

Dive Insight:

PacSun, a teen-focused apparel retailer specializing in California-style clothing emerged successfully from bankruptcy protection one year ago next month. That is no small feat in an age when apparel retailers have been flocking to bankruptcy, and some of them, like Sports Authority, have failed to emerge from it. With a new mobile app, PacSun is looking to ensure that it never has to go back.

Mobile is not new to the teen retailer, though. The company was pretty early to embrace a mobile web and app strategy, launching an iPhone app with Usablenet in the retail mobile app dark ages of 2011. It was also fairly early in adopting in-store mobile devices (specifically iPads), which it did later that same year.

Fast forward to 2017, and PredictSpring is becoming an increasingly popular partner for apparel retailers launching mobile apps. The company, founded by a former Google Shopping executive, helped develop the first mobile app for Destination XL, which launched last month. It was also behind the Charlotte Russe mobile app, which achieved 1 million downloads within its first nine months, and Tommy Hilfiger's first European mobile app, which launched earlier this year.

For the most part, this app looks to have some of the same features that other recently launched or recently revamped apps have, especially with the retailer's integration of their loyalty platform. The ability to shop PacSun's Instagram feed via its mobile app is less common, but in the coming months we are likely to see this sort of feature become table stakes, in no small part because evidence is mounting that the social media platform influences shopping behavior.