{"id":34261,"date":"2013-03-28T10:09:10","date_gmt":"2013-03-28T08:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=34261"},"modified":"2013-03-28T11:03:29","modified_gmt":"2013-03-28T09:03:29","slug":"citymob-from-daily-deals-to-designer-dibs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/internet\/34261\/citymob-from-daily-deals-to-designer-dibs\/","title":{"rendered":"Citymob: from daily deals to designer dibs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Citymob<\/a> has experienced booming growth since its transition from a daily-deals website to a specialist online retailer, with plans in place to expand even further.<\/p>\n

Citymob is an invite-only online retailer which offers a number designer products for a limited time, in limited number.<\/p>\n

The site started out as a daily-deals store in the daily-deals heyday, but has since undergone a significant shift in strategy.<\/p>\n

However, it wasn’t an easy ride, according to Citymob co-founders Luke Jedeikin<\/a> and Claude Hanan<\/a>, as the site had its fair share of obstacles to overcome.<\/p>\n

The Citymob founders, by their own admission, tackled the online retail space with no previous experience in the field – and as such, had a tough time adapting their business model to move away from a market flooded with daily-deals sites.<\/p>\n

\"Luke<\/a>

Luke Jedeikin<\/p><\/div>\n

Shifting Focus<\/h3>\n

Aside from the logistical issues involved with changing focus, the transition to a retail store wasn’t completely smooth, and the company saw a dip in revenue and customer numbers in December 2012 as the new direction kicked off.<\/p>\n

Since then, however, the site has experienced almost viral growth, flourishing from the 5,000 dedicated users who stuck around at the start of the site’s revamp, to a massive 200,000 users who now visit the site regularly.<\/p>\n

This growth, according to Jedeikin and Hanan, can be attributed to the way the site communicates with users and the way it handles its products.<\/p>\n

The site’s 3-point strategy is founded on the principle of “curative, urgency and scarcity”: to offer specifically-selected products (curative) made available for a limited time (urgency) in limited number (scarcity).<\/p>\n

\"Claude<\/a>

Claude Hanan<\/p><\/div>\n

The price of loyalty<\/h3>\n

More importantly, the strategy is working, and the business is turning a profit which gets reinvested into the company.<\/p>\n

Customer value has increased significantly, the co-founders said, from about R65 per user in the discount deals days, to customers who now spend upwards of R500 each time they visit the site.<\/p>\n

They key, Citymob said, is loyalty. Customers are returning – and the time between visits is decreasing.<\/p>\n

According to Jedeikin and Hanan, customers who use the platform over three times tend to spend ten times more on average than “in-and-out” visitors.<\/p>\n

Gaining loyalty is part of the company’s investment strategy, with a lot of investment going into developing the site’s platform to provide a customised approach to giving customers what they want.<\/p>\n

According to the Citymob heads, the plan for 2013 is to boost its user base, with a target of 700,000 – 800,000 users pegged for the end of the year.<\/p>\n

The company plans to boost its product offerings – giving customers access to more exclusive designer products – and to focus on its logistics (processing and delivery) platform.<\/p>\n

Citymob currently employs 28 people, and is on the hunt for 3 more web developers to join their team.<\/p>\n

\"Citymob<\/a>

Citymob team (click to enlarge)<\/p><\/div>\n

More on South African e-commerce<\/h3>\n

Kalahari.com reports big revenue spike<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Kalahari.com outlines SA shopping trends<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Bidorbuy expects strong online commerce growth in 2012<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Tablets driving online shopping<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Lower prices, convenience lures SA shoppers online<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Strong SA e-commerce growth expected<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Citymob has experienced booming growth since its transition from a daily-deals website to a specialist online retailer, with plans in place to expand even further.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":34265,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9882],"tags":[4869,5450,2065,26,5451],"class_list":["post-34261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internet","tag-citymob","tag-claude-hanan","tag-e-commerce","tag-headline","tag-luke-jedeikin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34261"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34522,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34261\/revisions\/34522"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}