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  • Cases
  • Redefining Online to Offline with a Fun App Plugin

Alibaba Group

Redefining Online to Offline with a Fun App Plugin

We conceptualised, designed, and built an easily accessible mobile app mini-program that provides fun user engagement aimed at driving offline store foot traffic.
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Alibaba Group, the multinational e-commerce conglomerate, was looking to increase its market share in the lifestyle and experience segment and simultaneously help more businesses operating traditionally in the industry get more customers through technology.

Alibaba launched the Koubei mobile app specifically created to cater to the lifestyle industry segment. They were looking to increase app adoption by shop owners/merchants as well as to grow the number of end-user customers. Koubei contacted Monstarlab to develop an easily accessible app plug-in that greatly enhances the user experience from both the businesses and the customer’s perspectives. Thus generating more app engagement and driving offline shop foot traffic.
60% increase in new users

Transitioning Traditional to Digital

New retailing, pertaining to the use of emerging technology to create meaningful integration of services online and offline, has started to gain ground among Chinese industries. However, most businesses are still operating traditionally and finding it difficult to adapt to the new trends.

To address this, Alibaba launched the Koubei app which has since been used by 2.5 million merchants nationwide. But they were looking to drive exponential growth and have tapped Monstarlab for this undertaking.

Monstarlab China conducted research to understand issues, coming up with three key insights: tight competition among commercial complexes, ineffective use of digital channels by traditional marketeers, and merchants lack resources to develop their own digital channels.

Monstarlab opted to develop a mini-program built for accessibility without download required but can instead be used via existing popular apps, such as AliPay. The team designed a great user-friendly experience to effectively elicit customer engagement.
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During the beta period, we got 60% higher acquisition of new users, 30% higher attendance rate than usual activity, and DAU of Koubei app increased 45%.

– Song Bai, Project Manager of Koubei App, Alibaba Group

30% increase in event attendance
Mini-Program
Koubei is a lightweight mini-program (plug-in) that can run within the Alipay or Koubei app. The system automatically pulls basic information from the user's Alipay or Koubei app account to create a profile which allows immediate usage.

Designed also with the merchant in mind, it was specifically made easy to adopt and manage to allow them to come up with promos and activities that can help drive traffic to their stores. And because it is embedded into widely downloaded apps, their brand messaging generates wider reach into the customer’s personal network.

No Download Needed

The mini-program is easily accessible and won’t add to the countless number of apps already installed in your phone. Just scan a QR Code from your AliPay or Koubei app and get immediate access.

Custom Merchant Pages

Merchants can create their own page from easily customisable templates in the mini program, enjoy social features, add important brand information, and even launch promos and events.

Gamified Customer Experiences

To stimulate action through gamification, brands can create tasks and activities that users can complete on their own or with their friends to earn rewards redeemable in their shops.

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Expanding Expertise Through Experience

“This is a very good learning opportunity to practice Ali platform technology and get familiar with the development experience of Ali series products, which will help us to provide digital services for more customers based on Ali platform in the future. In addition, through the project's backend management system, we extracted some common parts and made our own backend management communalisation.”

– Yuxuan Pu, Project Manager, China.

45% increase in Koubei App daily average users

About Alibaba Group

Alibaba Group Holding Limited, is a Chinese multinational conglomerate specialising in e-commerce, retail, Internet, AI and technology. The company provides C2C, B2C and B2B sales services via web portals, as well as electronic payment services, shopping search engines, and cloud computing services.

As of 2018, Alibaba has the 9th highest global brand value. With operations in over 200 countries and territories, its online sales and profits surpassed all US retailers (including Walmart, Amazon, and eBay) combined since 2015.

Alibaba's annual sales reached USD $46.5 Billion In 2019, up 51% year-on-year, with the e-commerce business accounting for 86% of overall sales. Then in 2020, Alipay becomes the largest mobile payment platform in the world, together with their local partners worldwide users that amounts for 1.2 billion.

The Future

The Beginning of an Enduring Partnership

The Koubei project laid the foundation for a lasting partnership between Monstarlab and Alibaba. Having developed and delivered technology that greatly compliments their system, this has opened doors to future projects and tech developments within the conglomerate.

Languages

  • Python
  • H5
  • React
  • Vue
  • Phaser

Tech

  • Swagger
  • Django
  • Alicloud

Integrations

  • Alipay open platform API

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