Success Story Retail

Health & Beauty Brand Delivers Seamless Omni-channel Commerce Experience

This HB&A brand is one of the leading salon chains in India with over 80 salons across six cities.

The client has established itself as a beauty destination with a leading image, large format experiential stores, separate sections allocated for beauty services, and a robust ecommerce presence with a wide range of makeup, skin, hair, personal care, fragrance and men’s grooming brands.

As it looked to build on its brand success and expand its business, it turned to Apexon to help build a superior multi-channel experience.

  • Leading beauty salon and product brand in India

    Leading beauty salon and product brand in India

  • Over 80 salons in six cities

    Over 80 salons in six cities

  • 10 million customers served

    10 million customers served

The challenge

TURNING AN OMNI-CHANNEL STRATEGY INTO A SEAMLESS CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

The company wanted to build on its considerable strength at retail and build an equally strong online brand presence to expand its reach and engage more fully with its customers. In doing so, it wanted to ensure its customers could interact with the brand seamlessly between channels.

It had an online presence, but it needed some important updates to elevate the experience:

Site performance improvement needed

Site performance needed improvement to enable a better user experience, improved conversions and higher SEO rankings

Turnaround time for launching new features

Turnaround time for launching new features on the web and app needed to be reduced

Improved analytics for better tracking and retargeting

It required improved analytics for better tracking and retargeting

The Solution

NEW WEB AND MOBILE APPS TO ELEVATE & EXTEND BRAND PRESENCE

Apexon’s engagement included development of web and mobile applications along with comprehensive testing. Key components for each included:

Web Application

Headless storefront for better performance

Headless storefront for better performance and reduced time-to-market for new features

Next JS for server-side rendering capabilities

Next JS for server-side rendering capabilities

React framework for component reusability

React framework for component reusability and cross-platform support

Middleware using Node JS for better scalabilit

Middleware using Node JS for better scalability and performance

Material UI libraries for consistent user experience

UI components and application theme built using Material UI libraries for consistent user experience

Pre-rendering for faster page response time

Pre-rendering for faster page response time and better SEO ranking

CDN for caching and image optimization

CDN for caching and image optimization and enhanced content availability

Google Analytics integration

A rework of Google Analytics integration to ensure alignment with the new site and business objectives

With this approach, the client was able to offer customers a seamless omnichannel experience across web, app and in store. Faster site performance improved user satisfaction and shopper conversions.

Mobile Application

Developed in React Native to ensure a common technology stack

Developed in React Native to ensure a common technology stack for sharing resources across web and app

Node JS middle ware to ensure the same framework

Node JS middle ware to ensure the same framework and eliminate redundant code

CDN for caching enhanced content availability

CDN for caching and image optimization and enhanced content availability

ntegration with Firebase for tracking and notifications

Integration with Firebase for tracking and notifications

Deep linking to enable app navigation from web links

Deep linking to enable app navigation from web links

Integration of native contacts

Integration of native contacts to show user contacts in phone

Integration of Android SMS retriever

Integration of Android SMS retriever to auto-read the OTP

Integration with Google’s geo-location service

Integration with Google’s geo-location service to fetch nearest location

By taking this approach with the mobile app, the client maintained a consistent brand experience regardless of channel. The mobile app was compatible with both Android and IOS devices and offered all the same features as the web app. Like the new web app, performance was faster, conversions were higher, and the client was able to launch new features quickly and easily.

Testing

Manual Testing
Manual Testing
  • Use-case and checklist-based
  • ECommerce experience
  • Functional and scenario-based
  • UI/UX
  • User journey
  • Cross-browser

API Testing
API Testing
  • Functional
  • Load
  • Runtime/error detection

Performance & Load Testing
Performance & Load Testing
  • Load test using Jmeter
  • Blazemeter for 100+ UV concurrent load
  • Page speed powered by Lighthouse and Chrome UX report
  • Gaitling – Karate for API performance

In addition to the results mentioned above, Apexon’s Testing approach produced important outcomes for the success of the project:

Enhanced Google page performance

Enhanced Google page performance from 40/100 to 95/100

Less than one second for a page to be interactive

Less than one second for a page to be interactive

Continuous testing of 100+ APIs

Continuous testing of 100+ APIs at pre-determined intervals

Improved web response time

Improved web response time from 10 seconds to 2 seconds

Over 2,000 test cases executed

Over 2,000 test cases executed

Outcomes
18% improvement in organization site traffic

18% improvement in
organization site traffic

474% conversion rate improvement

474% conversion
rate improvement

374% revenue increase

374%
revenue increase

Over 100,000 app downloads

Over 100,000
app downloads