In the world of fishing, comparison is everything. Keen anglers will commit to considerable spends into the thousands on lures, bait, reels, lines, fish alarms to be able to experience and brag about their latest catch or the journey and process that landed it… or perhaps not.

In this article we focus on some important developments and needs in the world of retail technology and uncover how one savvy supplier is reeling in customers in ever more innovative and targeted ways.

It is well known that just as important as price is when determining offers and campaigns for retail customers, place and location of where and how those offers are served is also of paramount consideration.

There has been phenomenal growth in the world of “Phygital” - the blending of digital experiences with physical ones and it is becoming an area that all multichannel retailers must be cognisant of, in order to streamline and personalise their offerings to their diverse customer audiences and bridge the gap between online sales and in-person experiences.

Retailers have to add to their understanding of what their customers buy with where and when. The more that is known about customer buying habits and norms, the less friction exists between retailer and consumer.

It is in response to this that Sugar Rush’s client Angling Direct approached us to address a number of key customer reach challenges through innovative mobile app technology based business transformation solutions.

Angling Direct, Europe’s largest online fishing retail supplier knows its customers well. It knows how they shop and it knows where they will be headed during their available fishing times (usually rural and riverside locations with minimal data access.)

Knowing this can represent a potential interruption to sales engagement when on a fishing expedition, Angling Direct needed to maximise those opportunities when they are in contact with customers - both online and in-person.

Sugar Rush Developed a hybrid app that allowed customers to browse and engage with catalogue items while offline via smartphone which would access the full eCommerce equipped website when the data connection re-established.
 

The App both designed and developed by Sugar Rush has attributed to a 93% increase in UK purchases with 70% increase in Angling Direct’s international customers. Angling Direct’s turnover reaches £70m annually from the sales of more than 15,000 stock items. This resulting growth attributed to the mobile app development project by Sugar Rush received industry recognition as a finalist in the Spider Awards in 2023.

In the latest release of the award winning Angling Direct My AD app, iBeacon technology was integrated into 44 physical stores across the UK to interact directly with My AD app user’s devices when in store.

They recognised the importance of those important trips to the tackle shop and wanted to ensure they maximised them by personal targeted offers.

Once through the door, the bespoke mobile app serves the customer with targeted and personalised offers for products Angling Direct know they buy or want, or for stock that the store manager wishes to promote/discount or generally raise the profile of.

Each store has the ability to control the offers served by their store’s beacon allowing for a great many retailing scenarios from discount codes, sales item promotion through to customer mobile app user specific offers based on their previous purchases and purchase cadence.

Sugar Rush are proud to add Angling Direct’s My AD to a growing portfolio of retail technology digital transformation projects and can truly say that it has helped our client to ensure that "the ones that got away” - don’t in the future.

For more information on Angling Direct’s app by Sugar Rush, read the case study here.