The Dollar Shave Club Android app for shaving products delivery

Client

Dollar Shave Club is an innovative and disruptive male grooming brand offering a direct-to-consumer shaving subscription box service

Services

Product Development

Industry

Ecommerce

Stack

Android, Realm, Dagger 2, RxJava

Challenge

Our client started their business with a direct-to-consumer razor blade subscription service, offering grooming boxes for as little as $1 a month. They disrupted the market with highly affordable shaving products, challenging the elitism of big players such as Gillette. The emotional affinity of customers has been the biggest deal for the company from day one. Dollar Shave Club (DSС) gained somewhat of a cult following after their promotional video Our Blades Are F***ing Great went viral on YouTube. It was an honor for us to receive their invitation to collaborate on the DSC Android app launch. By that time the client already had a feature-rich iOS app. So our team was faced with the challenge of building an Android app that would be on par with its iOS counterpart. On top of this, we kept in mind that DSC is not another subscription service. The tough call was to design a witty product that would keep up with the company’s tongue-in-cheek vibe.

We took on the following challenges:

●

Review the existing iOS app and propose an equal Android alternative, while also making it look unique

●

Provide competitive benchmarking, reviewing popular delivery apps available on the market

●

Support the client's product vision with an adaptable strategy that would include detailed guidance on design and functionality

●

Set up daily communication with the client's office in LA with transparent reporting on results. Participate in backlog grooming sessions. Follow the in-house development process

●

Create a flawless UX to enlarge the client’s fan base

●

Implement no-fuss shopping features to boost the company’s sales

Solution

●

An Android app from scratch that provides customers with full control over their shaving products delivery. Customers can easily edit and consume information on the go: change the delivery frequency, switch razor types, read community content

●

Performance optimization to ensure the app supports different screen sizes and renders properly across multiple devices, avoid device memory issues and other limitations

●

Stunning visual effects showcasing the company’s products and creating a decent vibe for younger audiences

●

Hassle-free UX provides customers with an opportunity to join Dollar Shave Club in a blink of an eye. Various settings to tailor a user profile are available. Users can also fill out their accounts to receive more relevant info & items

●

Order tracking allows customers to feel they are secured against uncertainty

●

Shopping navigation to allow customers to navigate through “everything you need to look, feel, and smell your best” and purchase items

●

Content publishing. Customers can check for updates of original DSC content within the app

Impact

●

Within a couple of months after launching the Dollar Shave Club application for Android, they hit 50k+ downloads

●

The app was featured on Google Play for weeks in a row

●

The app has a 4.9 rating with 97% of users ready to spread the word about Dollar Shave Club

●

The no-fuss shopping features and flawless navigation has helped the company boost sales of hygiene- and bathroom-related products

●

The app with the extended content section has strengthened the customers’ interaction with the brand that they admire for its unique sense of humor

●

Unilever acquired DSC for 1 billion in July 2016, which was one of the priciest sales ever of an ecommerce company, with a price tag that is five times its sales