December 3, 2015 Top Shopping App Insights
Black Friday. No surprise that Black Friday apps made big moves over the last two weeks. There are the Black Friday only apps: Black Friday 2015 Ads App (Sazze), Black Friday Shopping (Venture Media Labs), and Black Friday 2015 App by Slickdeals (Slickdeals). And there are the coupon/circular apps: RetailMeNot, Shopular, Ebates, Retale, Flipp, and Coupons (Coupons.com). Both groups saw spikes in rankings, but only the coupon/circular apps are sticking around at the top of the charts. However, most Black Friday only apps have ‘sister’ apps in the app store. For example, Sazze (www.sazze.com) owns multiple deal/coupon sites/apps: dealsplus, Pocketly, and ProGrids.
Kohl’s (NYSE:KSS). We love to say that Amazon is killing traditional retailers and analysts/pundits have been putting nails in the coffins of companies like Best Buy for years, but more than 90% of sales still happen offline and these companies can therefore take their foot traffic and drive app installs. We see this most notably with Target’s Cartwheel app. All big box retailers have gained considerable traction in the app charts over the last couple weeks, and yes, it’s still early, but I’m going out on a limb and calling Kohl’s the standout of the season. Yes, Walmart and Target (through Cartwheel) have higher ranking apps, but the Kohl’s app is just about hanging onto a top 10 ranking while competitors like Target, JCPenney, and Macy’s have seen rankings slip since Cyber Monday. And with the significant investment in mobile Kohl’s has made over the last couple years, including a major mobile platform upgrade in September, watch for Kohl’s to continue to impress.
Local Marketplaces. While none of the so called ‘Craigslist killers’ were able to maintain their peak rankings in the week of Nov 24 – Nov 30, OfferUp, 5miles, Mercari, and to a lesser extent Wallapop, have basically stemmed their losses or are starting to see strong gains. Even less popular local marketplaces like Depop and Varagesale are recovering from big drops in rankings. Unfortunately, letgo seems to be struggling. letgo’s ranking has stabilized since Cyber Monday, but it’s maintained the #34 ranking in the app store the last 3 days while all other local marketplaces app rankings have increased over the same time period. There are so many of these local marketplace apps spending incredible sums on acquisition that it’s hard to know if letgo just decided to cut back on acquisition or if the company is struggling.
Top 100 shopping app debut of the week. This honor goes to GOAT, a shoe marketplace, formerly known as Superb, a mobile app for making lists of places, formerly known as Grubwithus, which arranged family style meals at restaurants as a way to meet new people. No, I’m not kidding! Grubwithus was a Y Combinator grad that raised a total of $7.7m from Andreesen Horowitz, First Round Capital, NEA, Yuri Milner, Maynard Webb, and others. It was founded in 2011. Now in its 3rd incarnation, that I know of, GOAT is selling sneakers.
November 18, 2015 Top Shopping App Insights
Wish. Wish, which I group into the ‘sell crappy cheap chinese products and piss people off with 6 week shipping and terrible customer service’ category, is absolutely killing it. Not only is Wish consistently a top 3 app, but in the top 50, they also have Geek and Cute. The verticalized (many apps) strategy is working well for them. The only redeeming quality I’ve found for any of the company’s apps is that they have a great first user engagement strategy. Download Cute as an example. You’re immediately offered a free $1-$5 gift (I’m sure the product costs $0.05-$0.20), which prompts you to create an account, which means they get your shipping address and credit card #. Oh, and by the way, they charge you for shipping on your free order.
Context Logic, the developer behind these apps, seem to be a fast follower. I wouldn’t be surprised if Wish Local (OfferUp, Mercari competitor) finds its way into the top 100 apps in the near future. They also have Home and Mama coming on strong. For a company that needs to play catch up in the mobile world, Context Logic could be an attractive candidate. They’re hiring about 20 engineers + PMs at the moment.
Yoshirt. Yoshirt came out of nowhere for me. They sell clothing with ‘unique’ designs, but the real value is the ability to design your own clothing. While us old timers have trouble staying in tune with how kids are using Snapchat, you could think of this as Snapchat for clothing…or personalized clothing for the Snapchat generation. Pick a blank canvas – a bag, shirt, iphone case, socks, etc. – and then add your own photo, your own text and then choose from an endless supply of stickers (think emojis) and backgrounds. I could see them charging for access to special ‘designer’ stickers and backgrounds. One problem I see is the cost. A basic tshirt is $32.95 (+$3.95 shipping), basic socks are $19 (+$3.95 shipping)…could be expensive for target market.
Boxed Wholesale. Consistently a top 50 app over the last week. I thought Boxed was Costco without the membership fee. The quiet Jet.com. But then they launch Boxed Express and they’re Amazon Prime Now or Instacart + Costco. Not a bad combination. Even reminds me of FreshDirect from 12yrs ago because of their focus on fresh foods and their initial focus on NYC. One of the few commerce sites in the last couple years which has done a lot while raising what these days is a small amount of financing ($25m).
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