About MPHOnline: Innovating the book-retailing industry

MPHOnline is an online bookstore based in Malaysia. Since its inception in 1890 as Amelia Bishop Publishing, the organization has been through quite a few evolutions and iterations.  Today, MPH continues to bring innovation to the book-retailing industry in Malaysia and Singapore by establishing more touch points to connect with their online customers through more than just their website. That brought them to their very first mobile app, which was built with Vajro. The app has impacted their place in the market by providing interactive and efficient browsing and purchasing of items in MPHOnline.com’s exclusive collections of books!

The convenience of online purchasing

Owing to the pandemic, retailers have come to understand the importance of an online marketplace and how it can sustain their businesses without having to leave their homes. This made MPH realize the need for a mobile app, in addition to their website, to bring the reading public closer to their books. Their idea was to put a bookstore in their audience’s pocket, where everything is just a touch away!

The Challenges: Numerous limitations put their dreams on a halt

• Lack of flexibility and support from the previous developer

MPHOnline first built and launched a mobile app with a different developer on Shopify when they took they decided to go mobile. Although the developer helped the store in terms of designing and launching the app, the partnership was short-lived as MPHOnline was not satisfied as the amount of tech support offered was limited. The store felt that they couldn’t move forward with what was offered. In addition, there was no room for further customization, which only made things more difficult for the store.

• Trouble engaging with the audience

With just a website in their arsenal, MPHOnline had difficulty engaging and communicating about various promotions, activities, and events with their audience in real time. The lack of engagement resulted in poor conversions and sales during such events, and lead to the store looking for a more accessible touchpoint with the audience.

The Solution: Dreams realized with Vajro

Having always been passionate about providing a personalized experience to their customers, MPHOnline felt that it would be a challenge online. That’s when Vajro came into the picture, checked out many of their requirements and helped them achieve their goals.

• More flexibility in customization

Having been keen on setting up their own app with a UI/UX that reflects that brand personality, MPHOnline was delighted to learn that Vajro offers a lot of freedom in customizing the app to their liking, with the team guiding them through every step of the journey.

‍“ Our favorite has to be the splash-screen functions as it keeps the customer’s attention on the app until it fully loads and opens in a fun and exciting way. It was a pretty cool setting as many of our customers find our splash screen very cute! Our product pages also improved tremendously as we were able to display important information for books such as ISBN, the author’s name, and the name of the publisher.”

‍

• A level up to the engagement game: Push notifications

Vajro offers real-time image and video push notifications that store owners can use to engage with their customers and maximize their brand recall. MPHOnline has used push notifications to keep their customers intimated of all their events, contests and other announcements. The fact that they could schedule it much ahead of time had them really impressed. The push notification reports that were generated on the dashboard also helped them understand the pulse of their customers better and work on a kickass marketing strategy.

‍“Push Notifications have helped us inform our customers about our promotions, activities, contests, and events without any additional hassle. The most interesting part is that we can schedule push notifications for our promos/activities ahead of time, minimizing our workload so that we can focus on other matters.”

• Integrations with Judge.me and BoostCommerce

Vajro’s integration with Judge.me helped the store build trust and credibility among its customers by providing social proof in the form of reviews and ratings. Product filters and smart search options help eCommerce stores greatly in terms of improving conversions and minimizing churn rates by getting customers close to their desired products much sooner. This is where Vajro’s integration with BoostCommerce came into the picture, and helped improve the store’s sales and conversions big time.

• Priority support

The Vajro team has ensured that MPHOnline’s app runs seamlessly at an optimal speed. Regardless of the number of technical challenges that arose, Vajro’s support team was right by the store’s side to solve them and launch their app successfully. The team also ensured that the store was aware of all of Vajro’s recent launches so that they could use their app to its full potential.

“Most importantly, they have been very patient and proactive in handling our requests or issues raised while developing the app. As a Vajro client, it was a huge plus!”

The Impact

MPHOnline got themselves a mobile app and did not have to look back at all! Here are some kickass numbers to look at:

• 146% growth in Mobile revenue
• 25% surge in overall traffic
• 32% of their shoppers are returning customers
• 71% YoY increase in total orders placed
• 19% uptick in conversion rate

What the future holds for MPHOnline

With Vajro, MPHOnline plans to maximize their app’s interface to provide their customers with newer and better-personalized customer service with the help of push notifications, holiday effects, customized design layouts, collection pages, additional plugins, and so much more!

‍