Customer story

After four years of platform frustration, Hobbiesville switched.

How a platform that could finally keep up turned mobile from an operational tax into ~40% of total revenue.

The Hobbiesville mobile app on an iPhone, showing the home screen with categories for trading cards, Pokémon, One Piece, and collectibles
~40%
of total revenue now runs through the app
5× growth in monthly in-app purchases since launch, with weekly peaks above 45%.
12%
in-app conversion rate
Roughly 4× the mobile-web industry average, alongside 3× growth in product views per month.
3–4 hrs
reclaimed every day
Hours that used to vanish into app support tickets, now back on the calendar.
The starting point

Mobile was the strategy from day one

Hobbiesville was founded in 2020 to serve a community that doesn't browse, it hunts. Trading cards, Japanese imports, board games, collectibles. Drops sell out in minutes, pre-orders drive meaningful revenue, and loyalty is real.

Co-founders Edmond Georges and Logan Fournier saw mobile coming early. Within three months of starting their business, they launched an app on the no-code platform lots of Shopify brands try first. But, as Hobbiesville scaled, the cracks began to show.

And by 2024, the business had outgrown the app platform under it.

The challenge

Years of frustration, compounded

The frustration wasn't with the mobile channel; their audience was there. Instead, the frustration was with platform limitations and time-consuming workarounds.

The integrations they needed were limited, including Google Analytics, Firebase, real loyalty hooks, and deeper attribution. The app and the web sat in parallel universes: different catalogs, different loyalty states, different bugs. And the support load was eating Edmond's calendar.

“At one point we were spending three to four hours a day dealing with app issues.”

Edmond Georges, Co-founder

Going custom would have solved one problem and created another:

“If you go custom, you're not just launching an app. You're running a tech company.”

Edmond Georges, Co-founder

What they needed was an app platform that could keep up with the business, without making them into a tech company to get there.

Hobbiesville co-founders Edmond Georges and Logan Fournier standing together
Finding a better solution

Why Hobbiesville chose Reactiv

Before going live in August 2025, Hobbiesville's evaluation prioritized two things: deep integrations and real customizability. Not just a feature list; rather, they were looking for a platform their roadmap could grow into.

Reactiv checked every box that mattered to the team:

  • Deep integrations into loyalty, analytics, and subscriptions without extra dev work
  • A native React app (not iframes) for a truly branded, cohesive experience
  • Sync between web and app to avoid silos and support headaches
  • Push notifications that drive traffic to product drops, live streams, blogs, and even gamified experiences

“Reactiv focuses on painkillers. They've done the time with merchants, they know what's broken, and they've built solutions that actually matter.”

Portrait of Edmond Georges, Co-founder of HobbiesvilleEdmond Georges Co-founder, Hobbiesville
The cutover

A customer migration, where the rubber meets the road

The cutover ran over two weeks. The existing app stayed live as a fallback — standard practice when you switch any major platform. A migration banner pointed legacy users to the new app, an escalating push campaign nudged them across, and Firebase audiences tracked migration rate in real time.

In the first week, one-third of all Hobbiesville orders came through the new app while the old one was still running. The audience had been there the whole time. It was the platform underneath that had been the ceiling.

⅓
of orders in week one through their new app
And, driving more revenue than their website
Nine months in

The app is now their biggest channel

Some platform switches “work” on launch day and then drift back to baseline, once the novelty of a new platform wears off. Instead, Hobbiesville's growth has consistently multiplied.

Pulled from Reactiv's platform analytics over the months following go-live:

~40%
of total revenue
Sustained over multiple months, peaking above 45%.
7-fig
app revenue, monthly
Now their largest single channel.
12%
in-app conversion
≈4× the mobile-web average.
~3.8K
monthly installs
Organic, with very low bounce rate.

“We have a very low bounce rate on app downloads. Once collectors try the app, they keep it.”

Edmond Georges, Co-founder
Under the hood

What's actually running the channel

The app earns its keep on the back of what the platform could finally support.

01
App-exclusive dropsDriving the weeks when 45%+ of total revenue comes through the app.
02
Reactiv Clips everywhereAds, social, and QR codes become instant in-app experiences. No App Store detour.
03
In-app buylistTrading-card buybacks: a category-defining feature for the hobby space.
04
Pre-ordersFor tentpole releases like Pokémon TCG launches.
05
Bot-protection on dropsSo real collectors get the units.
06
130,000-SKU catalog syncSame inventory, same loyalty, same brand across web and app.
The Hobbiesville mobile app home screen featuring app-exclusive drops, Pokémon TCG pre-orders, and the trading-card buylist
The win

What changed for the business

The revenue growth is, of course, the most celebrated outcome of Hobbiesville's migration. But some wins are less visible, like the hours saved dealing with bugs and the resulting flood of customer support issues.

“The biggest shift is I don't lose hours of my day dealing with app problems. Every hour we save internally means a better experience for customers — and that translates directly to revenue.”

Portrait of Edmond Georges, Co-founder of HobbiesvilleEdmond Georges Co-founder, Hobbiesville

Hobbiesville didn't need to build a tech company to get a custom-grade app. They needed a partner who'd already built one.

Next step

Thinking about switching app platforms?

Reactiv migrates brands off legacy no-code app builders and brittle custom builds — without the platform tax.

Book a demo