The Home Depot recently joined the ranks of other top retailers to launch their own branded iPhone app. It’s a version 1 type release, but from what I know there is a lot planned in the future to really rev up this app. However within this initial version, the THD localized weekly ad content is included (and powered via the ShopLocal SmartDelivery API). The notable feature here is how the weekly ad content is connected to a “list” concept. This creates a useful digital – to – real world shopping tool that users can take advantage of to help capture and plan upcoming in-store shopping visits.
This is the app's start up splash screen
This is the main default landing screen
Once a user selects the "Shop" tab, this is what the user sees next
If a user selects "Weekly Ad", this is the next screen that appears with a list of current categories
Once a specific weekly ad category is selected, a results set is returned of on sale products
Once a specific product is selected, an item detail screen appears with two calls action - add to a wish list OR add to a shopping list
Receiving customer feedback is such a blessing. When real users take the time to tell you what needs to be improved, it really helps make the best product possible. Within the iTunes App Store, this is exactly what happens every day for the over 100,000 live iPhone apps.
Specifically for the Kohl’s Weekly Ad & Store Finder app, the 11 comments and 417 ratings (3 star average and trending upwards) that users have left have directly impacted the app. For example, users early on where getting confused on how to select a specific weekly ad and then how to browse through all the pages. The team took that feedback and added back and next buttons to address this usability issue.
Within the main screen, easy to use previous and next buttons have been added as well as paging info and helpful on screen tip.
Within the browse by brands and department tabs, a keyword search box and a handy jump-to a specific letter has been added.
Version 1.02 is now live and contains the following enhancements:
- Search for on sale offers by keyword(s) within the brand and category screens
- Jump to a specific brand or category value within a newly added, A – through – Z right hand short cut element to reduce screen scrolling, especially through the longer list of brand names that are on sale currently
- Fixed a bug that caused the user’s current location not to be stored and used to find nearby store Kohl’s locations
- Resolved a pesky bug within browse by brand that was keeping all results from appearing
- Enhanced the way users can browse through all available promotion front covers by adding previous and next buttons
- Enhanced the way users can browse through all the pages that make up a specific promotion by adding previous and next buttons
- Inserted some useful on screen tips that prompt users to double tap a specific promotion front cover to the view the rest of the pages of that ad
- Added support to double-tap to zoom back out to a normal level of zoom from a promotion page image that had been previously zoomed in to (by multi-touch pinching)
The wait is over. The Kohl’s Weekly Ad & Store Finder iPhone / iPod Touch application is now live within the Apple iTunes App Store. The ShopLocal team has been working on this for months and it’s great to finally get this live for the general public (thanks Apple for working the weekend and pushing this live last Saturday 10/31).
The team is also excited to see that a good chunk of people have already downloaded the app, given that no promotion has occurred yet, including a few outside of the U.S. (not sure why though?). It will be fun to see this app’s download footprint grow in the coming days, especial within the crowded Lifestyles iTunes app category. It’s one of those things that you really don’t exactly know how your baby (um, I mean app) will be received by the world.
It’s a free download so please download and check it out. Tell us what you think by leaving feedback within iTunes or rating the app there as well.
Available now, the free Kohl's Weekly Ad & Store Finder application
Within this iPhone app, there are four main features and content views which are browse by:
- Weekly Ad Page: Users can browse through all the active weekly ads for their current store location and then can select a specific promotion to view all of the circular pages one at a time
- Brands: App users can filter all of the current on sale deals by a specific brand such as Nike or Dockers
- Categories (called Offers in the app): Allows consumers to select a specific category of interest such as Girl’s Shoes and to only view those applicable deals that are live right now for their current store location
- Nearby Kohl’s Store Locations: Shoppers can use their current location to pull up a list of Kohl’s stores that are close by, as well as directly call the local store or view the store’s location within a Google map
Here is a collage of many of the different views and slices of weekly ad content that is exposed by this native iPhone app that is built around the best local deals that are available at local Kohl's stores across the U.S.
Target in it’s latest version (3.0) of their free iPhone app, has continued to make great progress in using new digital mediums to drive shoppers back in store. So instead of getting all caught up in all of the mCommerce hype, Target is staying true to their customers (they call them ‘guests’) and focusing in on the local store which means helping shoppers pre-shop by exposing what is on sale, via the ShopLocal powered weekly ad content (and underlying SmartDelivery API that powers this part of the app).
Right off the bat, the Weekly Ad content is one of two featured types of content within the iPhone app
So if a user choose to view the weekly ad content within the Target iPhone app, here is what they would see (skipping the user’s location entry screen as it is not that interesting):
Here is the main weekly ad categories that a user of the app can choose from.
Selecting the "Electronics" category, this browse results view is generated containing all of the relevant items and offers.
By selecting a specific product from the category browse results, a dedicated item detail appears with the local pricing for the user's current location.
It’s great to continue to see Target integrate the “best of what is on sale at your local store” (e.g., the content contained within the weekly ad) in all the various shopper touch points. This iPhone app has come a long way from being all about eCommerce / buying products online to being much more multi-channel and supportive of the local Target stores.
In an attempt to broaden the reach of the Meijer Mealbox widget, an iPhone optimized web site beta version has been recently released by Qponix. It’s very similar to the full browser based widget and makes use of an AJAX style in line content loading to make it snappy and responsive.
Also for those loyal Mealbox users that are OK with parting with $1.99, they can also get a fully native iPhone / iPod Touch application within the iTunes App Store. Same exact content that appears to be re-packaged for the iPhone mobile device.
Within the mobile version of Safari for iPhone, here is how this mobile optimized version of the Meijer Mealbox app displays.
With a ShopLocal created and delivered weekly ad content focus (e.g., Meijer calls this type of content “One Stop Specials”), here are some screenshots of how this iPhone mobile optimized version deals with these localized promotions:
Here is the overall top level category browse view
Here is a specific category browse result page
Here is a weekly ad item detail page
(4.00 out of 5)
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