Article

Mobile Monday: Coach Gift Finder

This special-purpose app's elegance is in how easily it helps customers find the perfect gift.

March 13, 2011

Welcome to Mobile Mondays, a weekly column by customer experience expert Mike Wittenstein, focused on mobile apps in retail. Each Monday, you'll get a customer's-eye view of smart phones, tablets, and occasionally behind-the-scenes technology.

Last week, we reviewed the Alternative Apparel app. It gets a 10 on social media integration.

Quick Summary
This week, we review the Coach Gift Finder. Coach, with headquarters in New York, is a leading American marketer of fine accessories and gifts for women and men. It trades on the NYSE under the symbol COH.

This special-purpose app's elegance is in how easily it helps you find the perfect gift. Sorting progresses from gender, to price range, to category, to fashion.

Review
The Coach Gift Finder app gets an A+ for matching the company's website in style, functionality and user interface.

Because this is a special-purpose app, gift finding begins immediately <1>.

A swipe-to-browse feature strikes an easy-to-view balance between image size and quantity <2>. Always-at-your-service, the Coach app offers to find the closest store if you need it now, as well as a gift list for later use.

Sharing an intended purchase is extremely easy <3>. The Coach app supports email, Facebook, and Twitter. The email created by the app has all the detail and links for the receiver to check out the same merchandise.

The find-a-store feature is straightforward. It works like many others apps relying on the built-in features of the platform, in this case an Apple iPhone <4>. If you happen to be shopping in Japan or China, you're in luck. Coach includes these stores in its location lists as well.

The app's Gift List functionality is simple by design and speedy for shoppers in a hurry: Click the item and enter the recipient's name. <5>

The Coach Gift Finder app supports sharing by email, Facebook, and Twitter <6>. The app's email is clear and complete, including links to specific items.

The About Coach option presents only one screen <7>, almost a third of which is dedicated to the app's developer.

What's Good

• Delivers on its promise of being a gift finder
• Management of multiple gift lists is easy
• Brand identity is maintained throughout

What's Not So Good

• Coach missed an opportunity to tell a richer brand story in the About section
• The interface doesn't support scaling (up or down) which makes viewing detail difficult
• While they're mobile-friendly, the app's icons could be more Coach-like

What I Would Do

• Link lists between the web and the mobile app
• Show multiple photos of an item
• Offer the option to present gift packages comprised of several items to commemorate special events
• Add a gift card option
• Offer stories from other shoppers with creative hints on memorable presentation ideas.