Good news for fashion girls: yesterday luxury department store-turned-digital powerhouse, Barneys New York, released its very first iPhone app. The app allows you to have a universal profile and shopping cart across all platforms and receive push notifications according to your favorite brands and geolocation (in case you were wondering why you needed to venture away from the retailer’s mobile-friendly site). We caught up with Matthew Woolsey, executive vice president of digital at Barneys to find out what percentage of shoppers are coming from mobile and what the company has learned about mobile shopping through the process of developing the app. Here’s what he had to say:
1. Barneys' mobile sales are up 3x compared to last year.
"Of course such exponential trends cannot continue forever, but with our apps and fully responsive sites we expect very robust, continued mCommerce growth."
Photos: @barneysnyofficial
2. More than half of their online customers are shopping from their phones.
“Having an iPhone app that takes advantage of native iOS features such as notifications and geolocation will be an excellent complement to our best-in-class responsive web experience for our phone users.”
3. Mobile shopping spikes around buzzy launches and seasonal sales.
"We will frequently sell out of Dries Van Noten, Mansur Gavriel, Public School or Hood By Air pieces within hours of launch. When that happens, or when we break sale, that first rush of buying is overwhelmingly from mobile. Just this week, in the first hours of our Spring Sale launch, over 70% of our customers were mobile."
4. People don't hold back while shopping on their phones.
"There’s no significant difference between which products our customers buy on a phone versus desktop. When it comes to mobile, anything people can buy on a phone, they will buy on a phone."
5. Online shoppers who engage with editorial content spend way more money.
“Customers who engage with editorial content— whether that’s a Window story, a designer interview, a video, a lookbook or a personalized editorial recommendation— spend 40% more than our average customer."
Get the Barneys New York iPhone app on iTunes.
