Homebase sees 600% increase in sales from mobiles

Homebase has revealed that online sales from mobiles have increased over 600%* in the last year, and they are making mobile a key part of their multi-channel strategy.

To help bolster those figures even more, Homebase have launched a free “on the go” shopping app. The Apple iOS Homebase app www.homebase.co.uk/app includes over 30,000 browsable products. Customers can use the app to check stock and reserve 20,000 products for in-store collection in all 330 UK Homebase stores.

Products featured on the app are in 13 categories including; ‘ecohome’ products, ‘best buys’. as well as a temporary ‘Christmas’ category with 1,496 inspiring festive products, and additionally user have the option to search results by customer review score.

The Homebase app has been developed by the same in-house team that produced the successful Argos app which has been downloaded almost one million times in the UK since it’s launch in May – we reported back in October “Argos iPhone app hits 800k downloads” that the app was up to 800k downloads.

The new app allows you to reserve online and collect goods 3 hours later

The shared Argos app template has been reconfigured to work with Homebase systems, and allows the same basic functionality such as the very popular “Reserve & Collect” service, which allows customers to reserve products that are guaranteed to be ready for collection within 3 hours, a claim they describe as “the fastest multi-channel shopping service in the UK DIY sector”.

Homebase’s drive to become the UK’s leading multi-channel home enhancement and DIY retailer has led to a 33% year-on-year increase in unique visitors to Homebase.co.uk with 40% of Homebase customers going online to Homebase.co.uk before shopping in-store.

Harvey Bennett, Homebase head of multi-channel & planning, commented: “Homebase hasn’t rushed into this space and as a result, we are proud to release an m-commerce solution that goes beyond a marketing tool to improve the DIY customer shopping experience. We have developed the first stage of our mobile proposition to cater for the growth of website visits from on the go mobile users and future developments will look to continue to improve the cross-channel Homebase shopping experience for this emerging consumer base.”

**We hate percentages like this but in the absence of anything better from Homebase and as we know the Home Retail Group well we’re prepared to make an exception.
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