GameLoot Transformed Their Mobile User Experience by Launching a Mobile App

With the vast majority of GameLoot’s traffic coming on mobile, there’s nothing more important to them than the mobile user experience.

Their smartphone users needed a better way to navigate their store. Their analysis, and the feedback they were getting from real users, was that they needed an app. But as a bootstrapped company, Gameloot didn’t have the budget to go all out and build a mobile development team.

Instead, they found MobiLoud, which was the perfect solution. MobiLoud let them convert their existing website to an app, with small changes that went a long way to improve mobile UX.

We talked to GameLoot’s co-founder about their experience, why they needed an app, and how MobiLoud helped them launch an app, grow their brand and streamline the shopping experience for GameLoot customers.

Why GameLoot Needed an App

For some time, GameLoot’s customers had been asking about an app. The Indian market is app-centric, and consumers are used to using apps for all kinds of products and services.

“It’s become an app world in India, there’s an app for everything, literally everything. You have to go to a doctor, you can install an app of a doctor and book an appointment, that person gets a notification and he'll approve the appointment via the app.”

Their need for an app went deeper than this, however.

When GameLoot started, they dealt exclusively with PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo products (games and consoles). 

But as they grew, they started adding more product categories, as well as complementary services.

Today, they sell new and pre-owned gaming consoles, games, electronics, smart phones, PCs and laptops, digital products, as well as running a repair service.

With all these elements to their business – buy, sell, repair, plus multiple product categories – mobile users were getting confused.

“It becomes more user friendly for the customer. If you want to sell something, they can just click on the sell button in the app and go to the sell category. And if they want to buy something, they can go straight to the buy category. Before the app, it was a bit confusing. When we saw the tab menu in the app, I realized it becomes very easy for customers to choose between 'buy', 'sell', 'repair'".

Just a small change in the app would make the user experience much more straightforward. And with 70-80% of their traffic coming on mobile, a small improvement could have a huge positive impact.

The Challenge

As mentioned earlier, GameLoot is a bootstrapped company, with no outside funding.

Profitability is important to them, and they don’t have the means to go out and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a custom mobile app.

Initial research into app development solutions showed that if they went the custom route, not only would it mean incurring a huge cost, but they wouldn’t see their app for a long time.

“The development time was very long. We were told it will take a minimum of six months just to get the app ready for a demo, maybe, and to go live it will take eight to ten months.”

There were cheaper options, but dealing with cheaper developers meant they wouldn't get ongoing support for the app, or that it wouldn’t be compatible with their business.

“If you see what kind of business we do, it's very complex. It's not a straightforward eCommerce website, where you just list products and start selling. We have a buy section. We have a sell section. We have a repair section.”

“I was also trying to get in touch with some freelancers, where they could do it for us for a one-time cost. But I realized an app is something which requires support on a monthly basis, on a weekly basis.”

The Solution

GameLoot’s co-founder was turned on to another eCommerce business, who had built an app that was fully integrated and synchronized with their website.

He did some searching to find a company that could do this for them, within their budget and time constraints.

This search brought him to MobiLoud. He soon discovered that MobiLoud could do exactly what they needed.

They would be able to create an app from their existing website, with the small touches like a tab menu that would go a long way.

Best of all, it wouldn’t take 8-10 months to launch, and wouldn’t cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

They could continue to manage everything from their website, without hiring mobile app developers or making wholesale changes to their business.

The Result: Hundreds of New App Users Each Day

Since making the decision to launch an app, GameLoot has seen a profoundly positive impact on their business.

Mobile users have taken to the app in large numbers, validating their assumption that many customers would prefer to use an app.

“The response has been really good. We have seen a spike in traffic and sales. We have around 20,000 downloads in one month. Daily we're getting around 700 new users. By our calculations, we should touch 100,000 in the next three months.”

And from the snapshot provided by their app store reviews, these users are more than happy with the user experience on the app.

On top of these metrics, they’re seeing many higher-level benefits of having an app. Having an app has provided more authority for their brand, and made it easier for them to grow through referrals and word-of-mouth.

“It’s easier when you can tell someone, just download the app called GameLoot. You don't have to remember the domain name, you don't have to go to Google and look for the right website. You just need to know the brand name and then just go to the app store and search for it.”

Another huge benefit has been access to push notifications. Push has given them a far more effective communication channel, which resonates more with their target audience.

“A push notification is something people will not miss. When we send SMS, a lot of numbers are blocked in India. Emails go in the spam folder, or Gmail has a promotion folder, which is kind of hidden.”

“If you look at our target group of 18 to 25 year olds, they prefer push notifications. We already got feedback from a customer. We have a section on our website which says notify me, where you put an email on the product which is out of stock, and once it's in stock, you get an email. Customers were like, why are you sending me an email? I don’t check my emails, just notify me via the app.”

Get All the Benefits of an App, With None of the Risk

By launching an app you can:

• Improve your mobile user experience.
• Enter the app stores, adding a new user acquisition channel and building authority and trust for your brand.
• Get access to super-effective communication tools like push notifications.

Many companies think the cost, time investment and complexity to build and maintain an app is an insurmountable hurdle.

But with MobiLoud, as long as you have a fast, responsive and mobile-friendly website, you can launch your own app for a minor cost, and with little to no risk.

MobiLoud converts your existing website into an app, which is all that most eCommerce businesses need.

You don’t need to reinvent the wheel when you launch an app. Just being able to package your website as an app, get into the app stores and start using native push notifications is enough to boost your revenue and deliver a positive ROI.

The best part is that it takes almost no work to maintain – your apps update automatically with your website, and you can use your existing web development team to manage your apps.

“My IT guy is very happy. It’s easy for him to manage because he is a CSS guy. He did a lot of changes in the app for us, it was very easy for him to understand the whole layout and how to do things in the app.”

“The good thing about MobiLoud is that even if you are doing a small change on your website, it immediately reflects on the app. So we don't have to go through the whole process of submitting a build and then waiting for the build to go live. I just did a minor change on the website and it's already reflected on the app. It could be anything, it could be a design change, a feature or anything.”

GameLoot is one of over 2,000 businesses who realized how easy it is to build and maintain high-quality mobile apps with MobiLoud.

You can do the same for your eCommerce business – just get in touch with us and book a free demo to find out.

We’ll walk you through the process, show you some examples, and even give you a preview of what your site can look like as an app.

Ready to build an app, with none of the headaches and expense that’s typical of app development? Get in touch and book a free demo now.