Co-op

The more members engage, the more good gets done. But for years membership was largely inactive. The loyalty card sat in wallets, unnoticed and unused and digital engagement was almost zero. Co-op approached Apadmi to change that. Not by digitising a card, but by making membership feel worth something again.

The Co-op app was designed to give members a reason to engage before they ever set foot in a store, so every Monday, personalised offers refresh making it a deliberate habit built into the weekly rhythm of the app. Members do not wait to be rewarded. They come back because they know something new is waiting for them. Four million offers are chosen every month as a result.

That weekly ritual sits alongside a feature that no other retail app has built in the same way. The Local Causes feature lets members donate their app balance directly to community projects close to them. It is not a marketing mechanic but a reflection of what Co-op is, a business whose purpose is to benefit the communities it serves. Over £100 million has been donated to more than 4,000 causes through the app.

Building a great product was only part of the challenge. Getting it in front of the right people and converting that visibility into downloads and active members required a different approach. We embedded an App Store Optimisation programme directly into the product roadmap.

The approach went beyond keyword optimisation. A full calendar of In-App Events was mapped to Co-op’s marketing activities. When the Community Fridges In-App Event caught the attention of Apple’s editorial team, it secured a prominent feature placement driving a significant uplift in impressions.

The ‘Get Your Groceries’ editorial placement on the App Store Today page drove a 26% increase in downloads in a single month. Over the course of the programme, App Store downloads increased by 54% and category ranking climbed by 42%.

The app continues to evolve in direct response to what members and data tell the team. More recently, the team simplified the journey from the app into Co-op’s online shop, removing unnecessary steps from a six-stage process that was measurably slower than competitors and reducing friction at a point where conversion was being lost. 

A broader optimisation programme is now addressing the highest-impact moments across onboarding, checkout and offer interactions with data modelling indicating a significant revenue opportunity from systematically improving these flows.