Retail
2018

Mobile App that helped pivot a perfume
subscription startup

In 2018, Scentbird was a perfume subscription startup gaining 3,000 new customers monthly and growing 110% annually.

With only a website as a customer touchpoint, Scentbird couldn't make the most out of this growth. Realizing the need for a new sales channel, they turned to HeyInnovations.

startup
e-commerce
Business challenge

Bolstering customer retention with a mobile app

Scentbird found its product-market fit with a subscription-based model and was gaining new users very fast. But to keep those audiences, Scentbird needed to constantly encourage them to prolong subscriptions — a task that a website couldn’t fulfil.
To shorten the distance between the user and the company, Scentbird asked us to develop a mobile app with their signature scent-discovery mechanics.
6 mos
From start to app release
+60K
New subscribers per month
11 mos
Average subscriber lifetime
Challenge

Bringing scent recommendation system to mobile

The core of Scentbird is a scent recommendation system. A user chooses the type, season, occasion, and the key ingredients they like in scents, and receives a monthly queue of perfumes to try.

“Scentbird’s fragrance selection process is all about personalization. The best part is you can keep customizing it by rating perfumes: the more you rate, the better your recommendations become.”

Mariya Nurislamova
Co-founder and CEO, Scentbird
Our solution

Engaging users from the get-go

To make Scentbird users subscribe and stay within the service for longer, we decided to offer them value right at the first visit. That’s why we turned the scent-recommendation algorithm into the app onboarding.

Designed user onboarding to show value right away

When opening the app, users specify their preferred brands, scents, and products. The app analyzes the data and makes a queue of recommended perfumes that users can add to their cart.
And after that, suggests creating an account and customizing the queue.

Added personalized picks to help build up scent queues

By creating a queue, subscribed users automatically sign up for the next delivery. To induce users to build new product queues, we put personal recommendations on the home screen.
Users see a new selection of personalized fragrances every time they open the app, like some items, and build up their product queue for the following deliveries.

Provided queue customization to keep users subscribed

We added customization, so that users could choose what items to receive next. They can add and delete products, skip deliveries, and upgrade their plans.
Thanks to that, Scentbird builds a more personalized customer relationship and strengthens retention.

“Retention mechanics were our main focus when building this app. That’s why now it works not only as an extra sales channel, but also helps the company ensure repeat purchases.”

Kirill Golubev
Chief Product Officer, HeyInnovations

Animated ingredient images to describe scents better

We took the keywords that the Scentbird algorithm used to describe each perfume, and turned them into illustrations. The product card shows the key ingredient images together with written product descriptions.
This way, users can easily imagine the fragrance and add it to the cart.

Integrated real user reviews to grow trust and community

After delivery, users rate fragrances based on scent type, occasion, personality, season, and complexity. They also rate the perfumes from 1 to 5 and share their impressions in reviews.
This improves the Scentbird recommendation system and helps other users make up their minds about the purchase.

“Before Scentbird came to market, perfume companies dictated the description of scents and how people should think about them. Now it's coming from the people themselves.”

Mariya Nurislamova
Co-founder and CEO, Scentbird

Results

We released a full-fledged mobile app with subscription tools, personalized recommendations, and unique fragrance descriptions in 2018, just 6 months after start.
In 2019, Scentbird reported gaining 60,000 new subscribers monthly with an average retention period of 11 months.
6 mos
From start to app release
+60K
New subscribers per month
11 mos
Average subscriber lifetime

Let’s develop solutions to skyrocket your retail business together!

George Petersen
Head of Business Development

Let's talk

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