Pet Republic, a prominent pet supply store from Jakarta in Indonesia, gave their mobile app a second chance. A mobile-first theme and pay-as-you-grow pricing inspired Melissa’s decision.
Pet Republic, founded by Melissa Sasa, is a renowned pet supplies and grooming services brand in Jakarta. Since 2011, it has served over 90,000 pets including dogs, cats, small mammals, and even reptiles. Their extensive catalog, live shopping events, and involvement in local pet communities highlight a commitment to their ethos of “Love, Care, and Educate”.
Initially an offline venture, Melissa brought Pet Republic online with a Shopify powered website. In 2020, triggered by the pandemic and growing mobile traffic, its first app was launched with another provider. Being a new channel, in-app revenue fluctuated and a fixed monthly fee proved unsustainable. As a result, Melissa discontinued the app within the year. With Apptile, she was excited for round two.
Apptile’s core plan was perfect for Pet Republic—it’s free to use with a small commission on app sales. The brand can upgrade anytime to a fixed fee plan, saving cost as in-app revenue grows. Even with Core plan, Apptile offers extensive customisations for app design. Pet Republic further utilized a limited-time promo for additional customisations. With all reservations addressed, Pet Republic relaunched their Android app.
Simplified navigation: A multi-level category hierarchy to organize their 10,000+ products for easy discovery.
Mobile-optimized product cards: Upfront display of product information (name and price), a departure from their website that displays these only upon hovering on the product image.
Customized checkout flow: Melissa needed the app to mimic their website’s checkout flow: order creation before payment. UI and engineering contributions achieved the goal.
Whatsapp integration: One-click seamless switch to Whatsapp for effective customer support.
Studying the Pet Republic website, it was clear to me that we couldn’t simply replicate the web experience. I needed to rethink the details to best serve mobile users. One major area was simplification of navigation. I addressed this with design cues—some obvious like a multi-level menu, and others subtle, like product carousel with a static image background for subconscious category identification.”
Pet Republic is experimenting with the mobile channel, this time at their own pace and terms. Melissa plans to introduce customer loyalty points and appointment booking features in the future. An iOS version of the app may also be on the horizon.
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