How one Japanese fashion brand is using smartphones to connect with customers

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The O2O market in Japan is expected to reach 50 trillion yen by the year 2017. Obviously smartphones will play a key role in this growing market, and brands already face consumer expectation to leverage mobile devices in as many ways as possible. Smartphone penetration for teens and consumers in their 20s is said to be around 30% to 50%.

LipService-O2O-app

One apparel brand targeting young females is well aware of this, and is using mobile for promotion to increase in-store sales and customer communication. It’s called Lip Service.

Credge, the company behind Lip Service, recently released an Android app that deploys an O2O service called Push Shop, developed by digital agency Bilcom. Push Shop allows brands to develop their own mobile apps with a geolocation enabled push notification feature. The service is available for a monthly fee starting at 9,800 yen (about $103).

As a part of its mobile digital marketing strategy, Lip Service is actively using chat application Line to provide coupons and sales information to the tens of millions of users here in Japan. Lip Service has accumulated over 20,000 friends currently on the platform, and through its promotional activities its sales have grown 50% compared to the previous week.

Credge operates an e-commerce service called Atomicboxx, which sees 80% of its sales come from smartphones. On the e-commerce site, the company recently added a feature that provides real time inventory information, updated every 30 minutes. The company plans to release an iPhone version at the end of this month.