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Australian surf brand SurfStitch taps into growing mobile demand with engaging shopping apps

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Australian ‘contemporary coastal retailer’, SurfStitch, has launched a customer app, aimed at driving sales and growing its base through engagement on the channel of choice for its customers.

From humble beginnings just over a decade ago in an overflowing garage, SurfStitch has grown and adapted to become one of Australia’s most innovative eCommerce businesses and now serves millions of customers.

With a sophisticated digital platform, strong customer service and a range of high-quality products, SurfStitch now finds that its customer habits have changed, showing a preference for mobile shopping over desktop.

The business’ growth strategy is now centred around developing the strong connection it has to what is a very loyal and growing customer base. A critical part of this strategy is to launch both iOS and Android apps with Poq, so SurfStitch can engage with its customers on a highly individual basis, increasing customer lifetime value and driving sales through the app.

SurfStitch intends to initially launch its apps in Australia, where the greatest volume of consumers are already shopping on mobile. With a large and active customer base, SurfStitch is in a strong position to engage and retain these shoppers with its apps.

Justin Hillberg, Managing Director, SurfStitch explains: “At SurfStitch we want to reward our customers for their loyalty by providing them with the best possible experience available.  Whether this be through enhanced product discoverability, app-exclusive drops or more impactful ways of surprising and delighting them. Apps allow us to do all of this while driving profitable revenue growth. Despite the Covid-19 outbreak, we thought it was essential to continue to prioritise our plans to engage shoppers through this additional channel. This pandemic has been a catalyst for mobile shopping, making an app all the more important for us.”

Dane Patterson, General Manager of Brand & Ecommerce adds: “We have a customer-first mindset at SurfStitch and all initiatives we consider have to have a positive impact on experience, otherwise they don’t get off the ground. In light of recent challenges both locally and globally, we decided now is the time, more than ever to reinforce the relationship with our customers and give them something to feel good about. With the richer experience and improved ease and convenience apps offer, if we put a smile on our customers’ faces, we’ve achieved what we set out to do.”

The senior executives at SurfStitch chose Poq after following the progress of other global retailers and brands, including Cotton On Group and Missguided, whom power their apps on the Poq platform.

Helen Slaven, Chief Revenue Officer at Poq, explains: “We’re excited that a modern and progressive retailer, like SurfStitch, has prioritised providing the best customer experience to its shoppers by embracing app commerce. Engaging with retailers through apps and shopping has become an expectation for today’s consumer. We are proud to partner with SurfStitch on its journey to a highly personalised shopping experience through the use of the Poq platform. 

The Poq solution for the SurfStitch apps will be implemented and supported by international digital commerce agency, Tryzens, who partner with Poq to deliver its platform to market and ensure their joint clients’ requirements are met through the app experiences created.

Tryzens CEO, Andy Burton says: “We are seeing retailer and consumer demand for app commerce growing. As a strong supportive channel alongside ecommerce, apps offer a logical extension of capabilities to enable differentiated services and engagement opportunities for different customer groups, especially for those who are regular shoppers. We are absolutely committed to our partnerships with our clients and with Poq – and are thrilled to have the opportunity to work with the team behind the much loved SurfStitch brand. We pride ourselves on facilitating retailers to work with innovative technologies like Poq and creating exceptional customer experiences.”

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