Leisure Books partners with Prezence for Media24 Books’ first foray into mCommerce
Marketing 204
Leisure Books, South Africa's largest book club which is owned by Media24 Books, has partnered with Prezence, one of South Africa’s leading mobile, apps and digital agencies, in what marks Media24 Books’ first retail app. This partnership marks the first step in the phased digitisation and mobilisation of Leisure Books.
In this first phase Prezence has applied its expertise and knowledge of South Africa’s mobile economy to develop world class Android applications for phone and tablet device along with a mobile site.
“With a unique, interactive and compelling mobile offering, Leisure Books, through its partnership with Prezence, is looking to blow the South African book market away with the features packed into the app and mobile site,” says Lana Barnett, CEO of Leisure Books.
“Our experience in the mCommerce field has shown us that there are indeed two distinct types of mCommerce users: those who steer towards apps and those who steer towards mobile sites. Our strategy with Leisure Books was focused on catering for both types of users, hence the decision to launch both apps and a mobisite for Leisure Books,” says Lynette Hundermark, Apps Business director at Prezence.
This app is developed specifically for the Android operating system which sets it apart from many others produced in South Africa.
“While this is a longer process than the industry norm of app wrapping, which essentially is a mobile site mimicking an app, users get a richer, more seamless, and efficient experience in using the app. Leisure Books, in short, understood the importance of approaching the development of these apps from a member-centric point of view,” says Hundermark.
It is not just a phone version optimised for tablet: With the trend of users moving away from PCs and consuming content on their tablets, Prezence and Leisure Books felt that it was integral that the tablet version of the app be fully optimised to harness the capacity and power available to tablet devices.
Far too often, Hundermark notes, tablets apps launched in South Africa are nothing more than “souped-up phone apps”.
“While the primary manner in which our members currently engage with our programme, namely using our printed quarterly catalogue forordering books by sending an SMS shortcode of their book choice, still works, the stats on mobile marketplace development made it clear there was a business opportunity for us here,” says Barnett.
Hundermark concludes, “Prezence has, in its 11 years in South Africa’s digital economy, developed a name as a leader for its work in delivering strategic and immersive digital experiences across web and mobile for leading brands.”
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