ABOUT THE BRAND
A complete retail universe
Planet54 offers their global audience the latest in fashion, tech, beauty, and more, curating a mix of their owned brands with coveted retail partners. Based in South Africa, the brand has cultivated a powerful gravitational pull, becoming one of the largest and most beloved destinations for trend-forward shoppers in Africa and beyond.
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THE CHALLENGE
From rapid growth to what’s next
Tapping into the cultural zeitgeist at the right place and at the right time is a superpower. Planet54 grew their loyal customer base by setting a business foundation with multiple arms across retail markets, local manufacturing, and crucial exports, servicing many of the wholesale and major retail chain stores in South Africa. But their driving philosophy has always been to build meaningful and credible relationships with their customers, and they wanted to create an easy, elegant, and immediate shopping experience that spoke to their customers’ needs.
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“You have to think outside the box… As a big data person, I wanted to know how we could make the user experience better, how we can get the right product to our customers and show it to them in the quickest time.”
Shahil Maharah
Director of Ecommerce
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THE SOLUTION
An integrated partner makes all the difference
Businesses have unique needs, and we obsess over the details and the bigger picture. One of the reasons Planet54 sought a new partner for a mobile app was access to smart integrations. Shahil says, “One of the most frustrating things that Tapcart fixes so well is integration — you bring in the Shopify ecosystem, including Loyalty and Wishlists, and it’s no longer a challenge.” So instead of having to partner with multiple companies and juggle the nuances, Tapcart’s partnership and integrations makes the work seamless, efficient, and cost-effective.
“You guys have the roadmap. You always provide feedback and make everything so easy. As a merchant, we find comfort in knowing that your team is handling the tech part — that aspect is excellent.”
Shahil Maharah
Director of Ecommerce
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THE RESULTS
Shifting gears leads to explosive results
As an innovative company in the retail market, Planet54’s mindset was driven by iteration, constantly tweaking and seeking new paths to see what delivered the most impressive outcomes, especially when it came to tech. They had dabbled in mobile apps in the past, but it wasn’t until they found Tapcart that they started seeing profound results. Like, really profound. We’ll let Shahil Maharah, their Director of Ecommerce, share the details:
“Over the last year, we had 10–20% MoM growth of users in our app. About 40% of our shoppers are now shopping on the app. And we dropped our total marketing spend by 35%.
Shahil Maharah
Director of Ecommerce
Push notifications keep the light on 24/7
Instead of allocating tons of money on traditional marketing spends and taking the time to reactivate customers, Planet54 uses push notifications to speak directly to their core consumer base, driving up purchase frequency and retention. And they’re able to speak a huge subscriber list while keeping a light footprint on data usage, finding that customers were able to open and use the app more easily than browsing on a mobile website, even in less populated areas.
“Having push notifications makes access to your consumer really easy. And we can do a deep dive on push notification analytics through Tapcart. To me, that’s golden. When we know that our app partner can tell us what’s happening on the analytics side, it makes our business — and our lives — much, much easier.”
Shahil Maharah
Director of Ecommerce
We love making powerful mobile apps for businesses looking to reach new heights. Book a demo to learn more.
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Check out Planet54 in the App Store today.
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