Built on Appcelerator Titanium, SmartWool partners with InspiringApps to create enterprise sales mobile app, empowering sales reps and increasing sales BENEFITS AND ROI OF MOBILE APP Reduced catalog printing costs 80% of SmartWool sales reps adopted enterprise app within 3 months Out performed projected adoption rate by 30% Brand consistency across seven languages A tool that matches the company s reputation for innovation Narrative features such as custom animations offer enhanced messaging over traditional catalog Large library of high-res images that exploit the ipad Retina display THE CHALLENGE: REDUCE PRINT COSTS, ADD VALUE AND PROMOTE A UNIFIED BRAND MESSAGE WORLDWIDE The long-term goal of reigning in print costs underpinned SmartWool s move towards publishing its catalogs on a mobile platform. They were hoping to overcome a number of additional challenges. Consistency across geographies Producing materials in multiple languages is especially costly. In the past, SmartWool avoided this cost by distributing design files to in-country reps and distributors. That resulted in aesthetic inconsistencies across different geographies and not all distributors were able or willing to produce localized versions. It was important, therefore to find a way to better serve international customers at an affordable cost. Control of brand messaging In creating an international print collateral, SmartWool had to choose between designing catalogs for every language in its distribution chain in-house or having local reps and distributors rework the catalogs, with an attendant loss of quality control. A high-quality app offered the chance to easily and affordably create multiple versions of a catalog that was always centrally reworked and approved. COMPANY SmartWool is a leading manufacturer of performance apparel and accessories for active lifestyles, best known for its high-quality merino wool socks. BENEFITS OF APPCELERATOR TITANIUM Localization support allows one app to support multiple geographies Support for animations uses Titanium s builtin support for animated content throughout Development speed and flexibility lets the developer work to the client s specific production schedule Data capacity and flexibility thanks to Titanium s built-in SQLite database API Extendibility potential to move to new platforms at little cost Reliability no support issues raised, even after months of field use DEVELOPMENT PARTNER Based in Boulder, Colorado, InspiringApps builds custom mobile applications for clients with a wide range of business needs. APPLICATION An enhanced, interactive version of SmartWool s Spring 2013 Run catalog for the ipad, featuring custom animations, high-resolution images, and support for multiple languages. OBJECTIVE Offer SmartWool reps an enhanced sales tool that reduces print costs and ensures consistent quality and brand messaging across multiple geographies.
Added value SmartWool felt that it could be doing more to help its sales team communicate the appeal of the company s products. Beyond the traditional catalog-style presentation of each product, an app could present further descriptions of products and useful market research. A better way to present the brand SmartWool is known as an innovative company. A well-designed app was a way to easily arm their sales reps with an additional tool that was as innovative as the company s products. POSITIVE EARLY METRICS Positive early metrics adoption 30% better than hoped. As a precaution, SmartWool didn t completely eliminate its catalog print run during this first season, although was able to print less material than in a typical campaign. Instead, its major goal was to see 60% of SmartWool reps making the switch from paper to ipad. Adoption, however, has been much higher than the company had hoped, with more than 80% of the reps already using the tool after just 3 months. We considered an HTML 5 solution, but preferred Titanium for the ability to handle a large library of embedded high-resolution product photos, its synchronous SQLite database API, and degree of integrated support for localization. InspiringApps is taking its expertise in creating high-quality, interactive catalog content out into the marketplace, pitching itself as a go-to app builder for retailers worldwide. APPCELERATOR TITANIUM, A TOOL AS INNOVATIVE AS THE PRODUCT SmartWool felt that the best way to address the challenges it faced was to build an app oriented for the ipad, but with the potential to migrate to other platforms in the future. They decided to first create an app for their Run collection of athletic gear for Spring 2013.
To build the app, SmartWool turned to Appcelerator partner InspiringApps, a custom app developer based in Boulder, Colorado. InspiringApps built the SmartWool app on Titanium, creating an innovative, interactive catalog that fully addressed their client s needs. Support for multiple languages The app was built to allow localization in seven languages: English, French, German, Danish, Japanese, Korean and Simplified Chinese. As a result, says InspiringApps President and CEO Brad Weber, SmartWool was able to control the design, and preview the presentation, of those different language versions before the app was released to the channel. Attractive, high-quality features that go beyond the catalog Integral to the app design are clean, full-screen displays provided for each product, organized by gender and product category. Each item has an accompanying high-resolution image, allowing users to zoom in far enough to see garment stitching details, fully exploiting the ipad s Retina display. We built the app for them to support seven different languages natively, and they were able to control the design and preview the presentation of those different languages before the app went out to market. AND CEO OF INSPIRINGAPPS In addition, the app features supplemental educational and market research information. Custom-built animations scattered through the app further aid customers in understanding the unique qualities of the product. Overall, some two-thirds of the content in the Spring 2013 Run app is supplemental to the product details found in the interactive catalog portion of the app. When people hear that the product line aims to have more people running in wool, it raises questions, notes Weber. So we need to educate them about the benefits of natural fibers and we use animations for a lot of that.
A better story The flexibility inherent in a well-designed app also allowed SmartWool s reps to tell a more engaging story. Users can navigate through the application in a variety of ways offering the enhanced and also up-to-date experience that SmartWool was looking for. WHY TITANIUM InspiringApps CEO, Brad Weber, already liked Titanium before he started this project. His engineers are able to develop apps using Titanium at least as fast as when they re starting a native development project from scratch and his clients like the cross-platform flexibility. He also tends to have more JavaScript talent on hand than Objective-C engineers, which makes working on Titanium attractive. Sencha Touch, another cross-platform development tool, was ruled out after his development team had a disappointing experience trying to build an in-house app. It was surprisingly frustrating, he recalls. We pick the tools that we thing are going to be most effective for us to put out a good product in a timely manner. We picked Titanium because we like it, and we think we can build great products with it on time. We pick the tools we think are going to be most effective for us to put out a good product in a timely manner, Weber adds. We picked Titanium because we like it and think we can build great products with it on time. A number of additional factors drove the decision to use Titanium on the SmartWool app: Localization support Thanks to Titanium localization support, InspiringApps easily delivered an app localized in seven languages. Data capacity and flexibility Titanium could handle the very large image files that made up the full SmartWool catalog. Its built-in SQLite database API also proved critical for SmartWool s data-driven product catalog. Some of that might have been accomplished through off-line capabilities in HTML5, says Weber, but we were concerned about the volume of data we were working with and had run into limitations in the past. Support for animations The SmartWool app uses Titanium s built-in support for animated user interface elements throughout. Flexibility in development time After approval of the initial InspiringApps wire-frame designs, SmartWool spent several months photographing product on models for their catalog. Filling everything in once the visuals were ready took just a few weeks, however. Titanium was a great tool to afford us to
be able to commit to that schedule, says Weber, and know that we were still going to be able to hit our deadlines at the end. Reliability in the field After months of use in the field, reps have raised no support issues with the SmartWool app. Extendibility While not an up-front requirement for SmartWool, the team at InspiringApps was glad for the flexibility Titanium gives them to port to new platforms in the future at little cost. One measure of success for InspiringApps is the quality of the final product. Even after months in the field, there have been no support issues raised by the reps. ABOUT SMARTWOOL SmartWool is a leading manufacturer of performance apparel, best known for its high-quality merino wool socks. The company also offers a wide range of technical performance clothing and accessories. Like many apparel retailers, SmartWool produces high-quality print catalogs that it uses to present its products to retail buyers. These materials are expensive to create, print, distribute and update. For international markets those costs are compounded. As a result, SmartWool wanted to experiment with sharing product information via an interactive mobile app, initially built for the ipad. This would move the company towards reduced printing costs. In addition, it would offer an enhanced sales tool that matched the company s brand image as both innovative and stylish.. Appcelerator is the #1 Mobile Cloud Platform Appcelerator is the leading enterprise-grade, cross-device mobile development solution on the market today. With over 380,000 mobile app developers worldwide and 50,000+ cloud-connected mobile, desktop and web apps in the wild, Appcelerator is the largest publisher of applications in the iphone App Store. The company s flagship offering, Appcelerator Titanium, is the only platform to enable fully native, cross-device development from a single codebase for ios, Android, and Blackberry. Appcelerator s customers include NBC, PayPal, ebay, Orange, and Cisco. These companies develop their mobile applications on Appcelerator products so they can decrease time-to-market and development costs, increase customer adoption and revenues, and enjoy greater flexibility and control. Download Titanium for free at www.appcelerator.com. CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS 440 Bernardo Ave, Mountain View, CA 94043 CONTACT US www.appcelerator.com Phone: (877) 909-4589 General info: info@appcelerator.com Sales inquiries: sales@appcelerator.com