Scentbird App — Our Case Studies

Business challenge

Scentbird turned to HeyInnovations as a fast-growing New York company that had completed the Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator program and won investment money from YCombinator.

The company found its product-market fit and launched with a website. Their new subscription business model yielded 3,000 new customers in a month, and the company was picking up steam very fast. In order to grow fast and stay operational, Scentbird had to incentivize users to prolong their subscription. Soon enough, they noticed that their website was insufficient for that task and realized that in order to reach more customers, they needed to open a new sales channel.

They decided to develop a mobile app and reached out to HeyInnovations. As Scentbird was going through a pivotal growth stage, it was crucial to launch a new platform as soon as possible. Our task was to create a comprehensive mobile application in 6 months that would become another customer touchpoint and help the company forge a stronger connection with users.

Key tasks

Launch a fully-functioning app from scratch in 6 months.
Provide capabilities for easy search, payment, and order tracking.
Implement mechanics for growing customer retention and increasing lifetime value.
Find a way to describe fragrances through smart UX/UI.

How we tackled the tasks

Implemented onboarding to induce subscriptions with user-relevant picks

Users cannot shop fragrances on Scentbird without starting a subscription first. To inspire more interest in the subscription and motivate users to stay, we introduce them to a personalized selection of fragrances upon their first visit.

When opening the app, users complete an onboarding flow, where they specify their preferred brands, scents, and ingredients. Scentbird then shows a feed of recommended products that they can add to their cart. And after that, suggests creating an account and customizing their subscription plan.

Created a flexible product queue to keep users in the subscription

Scentbird had a concept of a product queue, an adjustable list of items where users put the products that they want to receive next. This queue helps Scentbird retain customers, as by creating it, users automatically sign up for the next delivery.

We provided all the right capabilities for the queue, and made sure that users always explored new fragrances and updated their lists for months ahead.

Home screen with personal recommendations to inspire new purchases

We created a home screen with a feed of custom recommendations and bestsellers. The feed features new arrivals, best offers, and personalized fragrances for different occasions.

Users see a new selection of fragrances every time they open the app, which keeps them interested and helps build their product queue for the following deliveries.

By placing relevant offers on the main screen, we help users discover more products and quickly shop their favorites.

Note-by-note scent descriptions for easy selection and shopping

Scentbird used customer reviews to build detailed fragrance descriptions for their website.

We had to adapt that data for a mobile screen and find the ways of conveying all the scent characteristics through UX/UI elements. The goal was to create a perfume shopping experience that would be just as easy and clear, as trying scents in the stores.

To achieve that, we implemented note-by-note fragrance descriptions. We break the scents down into separate ingredients and represent them with bright illustrations along with written product descriptions. This way, users can better imagine the fragrance and add it to their cart.

Scentbird has a catalog of 600+ fragrances. To help users navigate through all of them and quickly find what they need, we created a scent filter that allows searching for perfumes based on unique ingredients.

User ratings and reviews to help with shopping and forge a trusted community

Product card descriptions detail the main fragrance notes. To provide a fuller perfume overview and give a more personal touch, we added a section with feedback from users.

Users rate fragrances based on the scent type, occasion, personality, season, and complexity. Customers also rate the perfumes from 1 to 5 and share their impressions in the reviews. This way, they complement the Scentbird perfume descriptions and help other users make up their minds about the purchase.

Scentbird perfume descriptions are based on real user reviews. In the new app, we wanted to recreate that user-centric approach and provide more capabilities for customers to share their impressions about the scents.

In-app subscription management to keep flexible and user-friendly

Scentbird offers a customizable and easy-to-cancel subscription that doesn’t put any extra pressure on users. They can fully manage their plan in the app, without contacting the support team or making any other unnecessary effort.

Changing preferences

Scentbird remembers user data and automatically renews the subscription, providing a stable monthly delivery with no interruptions or pauses. Users can cancel and pause the subscription, or change their preferences to view new picks.

Managing subscription

We created a subscription management tool so that users could solve all their tasks and choose the right settings in one place. Here, they can change their personal information, address, product queue, and the subscription plan.

Building delivery queue

Unlike in other services, with Scentbird, users themselves choose what items to receive next. Such personalization helps Scentbird build a closer customer relationship and strengthen retention.

Tracking orders

To create a more transparent and clear experience, we added the order tracking option. Users can check their order info and status, and view order history to repurchase select items.

Allowing users to manage their subscription in the app helps the brand build more trust, deliver convenience, and create an overall simpler user experience for its customers.