Table of contents
Discover how we support Sweet City to publish their app despite navigating complex Google and Apple Store policies, together with improving their UI and providing tailored app promotion strategies to boost visibility and growth.
About our customer
Sweet City, also known as a candy store or confectionery, is an online retail establishment that specializes in selling various types of sweets, candies, chocolates, drinks, snacks and other sugary treats. Sweet City’s online store typically offers a wide variety of confections, catering to people’s sweet tooth cravings from the USA, UK as well as South Africa.
- Name: Sweet City
- Country: The USA, UK and South Africa
- Start year: 2019
- Platform: Shopify store
- Website: https://www.sweetcity.co.za/
- Goods: chocolates, candies, beverages and snacks
Challenges
For brands with an online-only presence like Sweet City, having a mobile app is no longer a luxury—it’s a necessity. In South Africa, mobile internet usage is particularly high (over 60%) so a dedicated app can help Sweet City to establish a stronger connection with their customers, offering a seamless, on-the-go shopping experience that websites alone can’t match. Mobile apps help drive engagement through features like push notifications and quick checkouts, all of which contribute to higher conversion rates and customer retention.
However, they did notice that coding an app requires technical expertise to ensure smooth functionality and an excellent user experience. Publishing apps on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store adds another layer of complexity, with strict policies and approval processes to navigate.
That’s where Simicart can bring value to merchants like Sweet City.
“Before settling on SimiCart, we explored other platforms, but none fit perfectly: Some platforms presented significant challenges in setup, lacked key functionality, and came with high costs; others were prohibitively expensive for a scaling business like us. These barriers made them unsuitable for Sweet City’s requirements. That’s why we chose SimiCart.” – Sweet City-
Solutions
1. Build an on-brand app at no-code and no-cost
We offer a free mobile app builder with drag-and-drop design, making it easy to create a professional mobile app without coding skills. With its intuitive design tools and dedicated support, SimiCart empowers Sweet City to build their app effortlessly and stand out in the competitive e-commerce landscape. The app is perfectly tailored to reflect their brand’s identity, with customizable design features such as colors, logos, and images that align with the aesthetics of their Shopify store, ensuring a cohesive brand experience for their audience.
2. Dedicated support to set up the perfect mobile app tailored for Sweet City
Sweet City was focused on creating a user-friendly UI but encountered some challenges such as: app logo, mobile app menu and custom slider.
The app logo is too small and not well-blended with the color scheme. Understanding the importance of branding identity, we suggested a new version based on the original logo with correct format (transparent PNG files) and better size, ensuring it was both clear and notable. Sweet City, like many mobile app merchants, also faced the challenge of incorporating important store information like policies, without cluttering the main user interface. To address this, SimiCart had suggested using the side menu — an effective design solution that keeps additional content hidden from the primary UI but readily accessible when needed.
Going above and beyond, we proactively identified an issue with the custom slider on the Customer Review block. At first, it appears relatively out of the central part we designed to focus on. To address this, we suggested the optimal layout and safezone to ensure a high-quality display.
3. Fixing the payment gateways integration error
In order to bring the best check-out experience for app users, Sweet City wants to integrate some payment methods on their app, including Payflex and Payfast. Despite some technical issues of this progress, SimiCart immediately worked to fix it and make it operate smoothly in 1-2 days. We are thrilled to be able to assist Sweet City and get their appreciation for this prompt support.
4. Establishing push notifications – conversion features
We implemented automated push notifications that have been instrumental in driving engagement and boosting visibility for Sweet City. Features like rich push notifications, including abandoned cart reminders, have enabled Sweet City to optimize customer interactions, win back shoppers, and recover significant lost sales.
“I’m particularly impressed with the push notification feature, which has significantly boosted my marketing efforts.” – Sweet City-
5. Navigating with Google’s policies incompatibility
Sweet City had encountered some troubles when submitting their app on Google Store for the first time. SimiCart, thanks to the previous experience, stepped into detecting the exact problems with the policy incompatibility and suggesting some workable adjustment with app name and metadata on app listing. That helps Sweet City’s app get the approval from Google at the second try.
“Setting up SimiCart for my business has been an incredibly smooth experience. The platform is intuitive, making the entire process quick and hassle-free. The support I’ve received from Bianca at SimiCart has been exceptional—she’s always been available to provide helpful guidance whenever needed.” -Sweet City-
6. Suggesting app promotion strategy
After successfully launching the app, SimiCart also proposes channels and actions for Sweet City promotion plan, including online store homepage, Blog and email marketing. Besides, we are about to release a brand-new feature named smart app banner: display a small prompt for users when accessing your store on mobile to redirect them to the mobile app instead. All of these things can contribute to boost the app’s growth, not only for Sweet City but also all the clients of SimiCart.
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