Behind the App: Unbound Commerce

Unbound Commerce is the #1 mobile commerce provider among mid-market retailers. Their Mobile Presence® platform is used by 600+ merchants, selected as the easiest and most cost-effective way to mobile-optimize their business. As a company, Unbound Commerce is dedicated to helping retailers take advantage of new mobile & digital technologies, devices, and apps to better interact with their customers.

We recently sat down with Wilson Kerr, VP Business Development & Sales at Unbound Commerce to talk about their journey to building this solution for BigCommerce merchants and what’s next on their roadmap.

Hi, Wilson! Tell me about Unbound Commerce.

Unbound Commerce is a mobile commerce solution provider based in Boston, MA. Since 2008, we have been delivering mobile site and app-based retail solutions for online retailers and have launched over 1000 commerce-enabled mobile experiences.

Our team includes in-house designers and we support all aspects of the native mobile application build process. We also offer retailers ongoing support after they are published to the iOS (Apple) and Android (Google) app stores.

Overall, our audience consists of any retailer looking to increase mobile conversion rates and sales. Our customer base includes great brands like Ashley Furniture, Rockport, Finish Line, ProStockHockey, Revel Nail, and New Balance. Most recently, we’ve focused on serving small to mid-sized retailers and have new pricing models designed to meet almost any budget.

The Unbound Commerce app solution is available to BigCommerce merchants via our “Apptive” cartridge listed in the BigCommerce App Marketplace. Upon download, the cartridge allows retailers to start the process of BC store integration and begin the app build. Once done, our team engages with each retailer one on one in a series of discovery meetings, to discuss the specific 3rd party elements they have added to their BC store (ratings and reviews, search, loyalty) and their goals for an app. Deeper engagement with customers via Push Messaging and a higher average conversion rate are the two most-common asks.

Why did you decide to offer this solution?

In the US, the vast majority of time spent on mobile devices is spent on apps. According to a Criteo report, native retail apps generated 66% of all mobile commerce revenue — twice as much revenue as mobile websites. Apps even outperformed desktop e-commerce sites — accounting for 44% of all online sales in Q4 2017, versus 33% for desktop in the same period.

Typically, mobile sites offer conversion rates stuck in the 1.0–2.0% range, about half that of desktop conversion rate. Native mobile apps, on the other hand, boast conversion rates averaging 6%, or three times that of most mobile websites. With 50% of online retailers citing mobile apps as a top priority for their 2019 omnichannel strategy, having a cartridge available for BC retailers makes a ton of sense.

Push notifications/messaging are probably the #1 reason retailers inquire about a native app, since this is a feature that can drive a lot of sales and is unique to native shopping apps.

Tell us more about the “Apptive” cartridge for the BigCommerce App Marketplace.

When a merchant launches the cartridge, a connection is established between our Apptive Easy App Builder and their BC Store.

When the merchant is logged into their BC store, the cartridge establishes connectivity between their store and then launches an iframe within the BC console. The merchant (or their agency) can then use the Easy App Builder to name the app, pick colors, do basic design, upload logos, chose fonts, etc. Splash screens can be created and background colors can be picked, and all static content filled in. Once done, the app is created in a basic form, but there is still some manual configuration left to do by the Unbound team, as the apps need to have 3rd party elements integrated and need to be published to the respective app stores (iOS and Android).

The cartridge has been on the BC App store for a long time, but we have recently updated it to take advantage of the fact that BC now has published APIs that allow us to more-deeply integration into the ecommerce platform. Our recent app builds are some of the best we have ever done, since we extend and leverage the current online store a retailer has live, into iOS and Android apps.

We require almost no technical expertise on the part of the retailer (or agency/SI) and all data (product info, orders, etc) flows seamlessly back and forth between the apps and the ecommerce platform. Once the app is built, the dashboard interface to make changes is “click and drag” easy and includes the ability to create and send push messages. Since the app is using data from the BC store, there is no need to manage product data separately and orders placed in the app flow directly into the BC merchant backside.

What goes into developing a custom app for BigCommerce sites?

The mobile apps are built using a “hybrid” technique. The catalog modules (Search, PLP, PDP) and customer engagement or company information modules (Contact, About, Messages) are developed using native code such as SWIFT and Java, while the Cart, checkout and customer account pages are customized versions of the e-commerce website. This allows us to keep the development costs down and still offer custom UI/UX. The catalog and search modules are supported by our server-side APIs, leveraging the Catalog API from BigCommerce, that we’ve built to maximize reuse and also protect the mobile app from minor changes to BigCommerce APIs and/or the product attributes. We also provide a business user dashboard to manage content for the customer engagement modules such as the home screen, messages, sales/deals, etc.

We use a collaborative approach to design our apps by working with our clients to ensure their choice of branding is incorporated in the app. We also run through an exercise to analyze product attributes and map them to our API middleware to ensure optimal ecommerce UX. We review and integrate custom/3rd party services such as search, loyalty, chat, etc. depending on the client needs. The client is engaged in UAT after the development phase and apps are tested using alpha-distribution via platforms such as Fabric-Beta and TestFlight. User feedback is managed through collaboration tools such as Google Docs, JIRA, etc. User feedback typically goes through an iterative triage and development process and will end up in a subsequent release depending on the impact it would make to UX and/or success criteria of the app. From an app development and delivery process, being able to release versions with minimal iterations is pretty important — that indicates that we’ve considered all aspects and optimized the user experience. Other key success criteria is the browse-to-buy conversion rate. The better the app is, the higher is the conversion rate.

What technical challenges have you encountered?

As the BigCommerce APIs have changed over the years, we have been continually updating the cartridge to ensure we take maximum advantage. For example, we are currently working on integrating with the checkout API.

A challenge we face is when retailers are using other 3rd party apps like Search or Ratings and Reviews. We have to fold in API integration with these 3rd parties to create a seamless native app experience that mirrors the website functionality. We do this by pre-integrating with most of the popular 3rd party apps.

Tell about what success has looked like for Unbound Commerce.

We are now a Certified Partner and get 2–3 cartridge downloads and/or direct contacts a week. We have a perfect 5-star rating from BC customers that use mobile apps to drive higher conversions and generate incremental revenue. We work closely with the BC team and their support is unparalleled. As a company, BigCommerce stands alone in the commerce space and we have benefited greatly from inclusion on their marketplace.

Finally, what’s next for Unbound Commerce?

We’re very excited that BigCommerce is pushing to be an API-first, headless e-commerce platform. That forms the perfect foundation for the rich user experience and branding that a mobile app can provide. We’re looking forward to full payment integration support with checkout via APIs which will make the whole experience a richer native one. BigCommerce has a strong set of APIs for ecommerce and we’re looking forward to accessing more server-to-server APIs to services that are currently only available for the web.

As native retail mobile apps continue to evolve into the new “must have” for online retailers, we stand in partnership with BigCommerce to extend and leverage the top-shelf online retail experience they provide into well-designed, fast, secure and conversion-rate iOS and Android mobile apps.

Moving forward, we hope to be the default mobile app cartridge option for BigCommerce retailers looking to increase conversion rates and more-deeply engage with their best customers. We are working with the BigCommerce sales and customer support teams and have educated them on our offering. Since all orders “pour back into” the BigCommerce platform, the relationship we have built with BigCommerce is mutually beneficial and growing.

We’d like to thank Unbound Commerce for sharing their story and giving us an inside look into their development process. You can learn more and find the Unbound Commerce listing in the BigCommerce Marketplace here.