Investing in Plobal

Neil Patel, co-founder of KissMetrics and Crazy Egg recently quoted the rule of thumb for digital marketing, “It costs 6-7 times more to attract a customer than to retain an existing one.”  With the recent influx of D2C brands (and their inevitable competitors) playing fast and loose in the digital ad space, we are seeing clear trends of brands burning huge money on customer acquisition. More and more dollars are needed today to compete for the same impressions. For most brands, their competitors are just one click away and the competition for consumer attention is skyrocketing. As a result, CAC (Cost of Acquiring Customers) has reached a point where it’s outpacing customer lifetime value (LTV). Hence, every brand is trying hard to improve ‘brand stickiness’ – a strategy that will have consumers coming back to their brand over and over again.

In their quest to increase stickiness and reduce cost of acquiring customers, brands have now realized that creating an omni channel strategy is the key to retaining customers in online shopping and just having an online website does not make the cut. There is also an increased propensity for consumers to buy from mobile.  Shopify recently released a report stating that since the third quarter of 2019, 81% of traffic has been coming from mobile devices. And in 2021, 57% of online purchases were made in-app.

To tap this growing trend, a few brands tried turning to mobile friendly sites for Shopify stores but this approach is not able to offer the customers an intuitive platform for browsing through various product ranges or completing a purchase. There are many factors such as slow page loading time, unsaved buyer preferences, non personalized recommendations and complex checkout flows making it harder for a customer to complete a purchase. Cart abandonment is one of the biggest challenges that brands face on the mobile web. Also basic data—like signups and page views—provides a superficial view of how a customer feels about your brand and products. D2C marketers need user information that spans the entire funnel—not just the moment of purchase—to craft personalized campaigns.

According to a study in 2021, more than 69% of millennials preferred to conduct mobile shopping via mobile apps.  Even for most large brands and marketplaces in India, anywhere between 30-50% of transactions come via app and this trend is even more pronounced for large D2C brands. Even global brands like Kohl’s and Macy’s get a significant chunk of their GMV from their apps. But while these bigger brands now have the in-house capability to build and maintain a native app, a big chunk of Shopify brands today find this cumbersome and away from their core competence. Channels like PWA (Progressive Web Apps)  and web are easier to build and maintain but  the conversions are abysmally low (mobile apps have ~7x higher conversions). This also means merchants have no avenues to communicate with even their core customer base and need to consistently invest in remarketing even for this loyal base. With the advent of a cookieless world, first party data that brands collect on every app user and detailed insights on every sale is going to become the most efficient mechanism to create targeted messaging and increase conversions. Hence, across the spectrum, merchants are now realizing the need for a proprietary destination app that offers a direct channel with consumers, offering better click rates for notifications and more.

That’s where Plobal Apps come in!

Founded in 2021 by Atul Poharkar, Plobal Apps has built a product which allows Shopify merchants to create and run mobile apps for their webstores. With the advent of ecommerce, more and more businesses have felt the need to increase their presence online. Shopify’s ecosystem has matured significantly and has allowed brands to easily build a web presence. COVID has only accelerated this trend. Shopify has ~3.9M storefronts today and total revenue grew to $1.2 Billion in Q1’22. According to our research, there are more than 5000 stores doing more than $5M in sales. Most Shopify merchants doing multi-million dollar in annual sales have a large enough pool of retained customers to drive app-installs. They also have a large enough budget and understanding of design funnels and acquisition strategies to influence installs and conversions. However, what these merchants lack are skills and manpower to build, maintain, design and redesign their apps which aligns with their funnels and GTM strategies. Plobal’s drag-and-drop app builder allows these brands to build stunning native mobile apps with zero code, within minutes and helps them drive installs, engagement and revenues. Plobal provides more than 100+ features to automate the mobile app and provides out of the box integration with the most common tools. It seamlessly integrates with other third party apps such as Klaviyo, Attentive, Yotpo, Apple Pay, Intercom etc. that brands’ Shopify store relies on.  Plobal not only focuses on building the app but also on what happens after the app is launched - driving installs, setting up push notifications, optimizing app performance and making the most of the mobile app at every step of the customer lifecycle.

Mobile apps help deliver a mobile shopping experience that converts. With the access to richer insights through the first party data collected on the app, brands are now able to provide a personalized experience for customers,  increasing the customer loyalty and hence the return on investment. In simple words, Plobal helps the brands to get the most out of their mobile app. 

When we first met Atul in Pune, we were swept away by his insights and depth of knowledge in the Shopify Ecosystem. He had been building and scaling mobile apps for Shopify Stores much before he started Plobal Apps. His hands-on experience in dealing with premium brands, and following a systematic approach to product scalability backed by constant tech innovations is what cemented our belief in the approach he was taking. When we first met with the Plobal team in May 2022, they were still in the midst of developing some core components of the product. Reviews from early customers were stellar. Even at that stage, Plobal had managed to acquire and impress Steve Madden, despite the presence of better funded competitors. From the onset, Plobal has been built to scale. The platform focus has allowed the team to continuously add new features such as 1 click checkout, live streaming, multi store setup etc  to provide brands a unique experience for their customers. Over the past year, we have been lucky to have a ringside view of how Atul and the stellar team at Plobal have brought it to a place where they can compete for the largest, most evolved D2C brands and win against anyone in the ecosystem. They power mobile iOS and android apps for some of the world’s largest brands such as Forever21, Kyte Baby, Goose Creek, Matt & Nat and thousands more - driving a significant chunk of their business via apps.

Plobal’s vision is not limited just to mobile apps - they aspire to be the platform that makes mobile phones the preferred channel for all brands - such that mobile apps are not an afterthought, but a core piece in any brand’s strategy aspiring for an omnichannel presence. Atul’s vision excited us to lead the seed round later last year. And we were more than excited to deepen our partnership this year and led the Series A round.  We feel fortunate to be a part of this exciting journey and be at the forefront of this evolution in the commerce industry.