Rue La La real-time inventory feature produces longer mobile sessions

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Rue La La mobile users can now watch product movement in real time

Flash sales site Rue La La is introducing a new mobile-only feature as it takes a mobile-first approach to capitalize on its growth in the medium.

Today Rue La La is introducing Right Now, a new feature that is only available on the merchant’s mobile shopping apps. Right Now lets members watch the movement of products in real-time so they can see which items are selling quickly and which sizes are sold out.

“Most of the best stuff on Rue La La sells out very quickly,” said Steve Davis, president of Rue La La [2], Boston.

“With Right Now, members can actually see what is selling and moving in real time” he said.

“You are going to see us bring mobile and social together in powerful ways. We will be leveraging our apps as a means for members to share and connect with each other and with our brand in a more meaningful way.”

Longer sessions
Right Now addresses how Rue La La members shop the flash sale site, with members coming on at 8 a.m. ET or soon after, when new brands go on sale. Because quantities are often limited, some items sell out quickly.

Right Now gives members visibility into what is selling quickly.

The real-time inventory feature had a soft launch in early October and Rue La La is already seeing some interesting results around engagement and frequency.

The number of Rue La La sessions between 1 and 3 minutes in length increased 514 percent in the week following the soft launch, 3-to-10-minute sessions increased 444 percent and 10-to-30-minute sessions increased 261 percent.

Rue La La also reports that 60 percent of users are coming back to its app within two days.

Mobile is a quickly growing channel for Rue La La, with up to 20 percent of sales coming in via mobile on week days and up to 30 percent on the weekend. In comparison, mobile accounted for 2 percent of sales back in January 2010.

“These last 18 months, we have had meteoric growth in the mobile engagement of our customers and mobile sales,” Mr. Davis said.

Feature leader
Going forward, Rue La La is focused on capitalizing on the unique way that consumers engage with mobile.

When Rue La La first moved into the mobile space 18 months, mobile features typically lagged behind features on its Web site. Now this is starting to change.

“The big evolution that has happened between now and then is that mobile is now the feature leader,” Mr. Davis said. “Mobile is leading the way as it relates to design and feature roll outs, which is quite exciting and very different from a couple of years ago.

“You are going to see more unique features for mobile only from Rue La La,” he said. “The nature of the mobile experience is just different and how shoppers engage with mobile is different.”

 

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