David Jones has launched a magazine app for the iPad as part of the Australian retailer’s push into e-commerce.
The David Jones Magazine app includes guest editorial and a catalogue of David Jones merchandise. The app was designed with Adobe Digital Publishing Suite.
“We want our customers to be able to access more than 1000 brands we have on offer, when and where they want,” said David Jones marketing manager, Gary Davey. “An app for tablet devices allows customer to get inspired and also experience one of many new ways to shop with us.”
David Jones has seen “significant” customer engagement and “a very pleasing amount of traffic” to its website since the retailer announced a digital strategy in November, Davey said.
While the store’s first app is only for iPad, David Jones plans to support the iPhone and Android devices in the future, he said.
Australian retailers have struggled to support online commerce. A report by Borland showed many retail websites failing to handle spikes of traffic after Christmas, including Woolworths, JB Hi Fi and Big W.
“On New Year’s Eve alone, Woolworths experienced a rush of last minute online purchases with response times on the home page exceeding 10 seconds - a deterioration of almost 50 per cent,” Borland said.
“JB Hi Fi saw its greatest peak on Boxing Day, causing response delays of up to five seconds,” while Big W suffered “response times on the website varying from five to ten seconds at times,” Borland said.
Click Frenzy, a recent event based on Cyber Monday from the United States designed to spur traffic to Australian retailers’ websites, similarly resulted in crippling Web congestion.
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