At a glance

• Customer: Topps Tiles, the UK's largest specialist tile retailer, with 280+ stores and over 60 years of heritage

• Challenge: An existing CMS that couldn't reach a new mobile app, and a need to tailor content to different trade types

• Solution: Hygraph as a single, structured content layer for the Topps Trade App

• Stack: Hygraph, Flutter, Magento, Bloomreach

• Build partner: Apadmi

• Result: The Topps Trade App now accounts for 50% of Topps Tiles’ digital trade sales

The challenge: time lost is money lost

For a tradesman, time on site is everything. Before they arrive in-store, they need to know the stock is there. Mid-job, they need trade pricing without stopping to call a store. Across several projects, tracking loyalty rewards and account activity has traditionally meant paperwork or memory.

Topps Tiles set out to fix this with the Topps Trade App, a mobile-first platform for trade customers, built with mobile consultancy Apadmi. But the app needed more than a frontend. Topps Tiles' existing CMS couldn't deliver content to a native mobile experience, and the business wanted different trade types to see what matters to them. A tiler and a builder don't shop the same way, and shouldn't have to wade through the same content, without the team maintaining separate content for each.

The solution: one content layer, built for omnichannel

Topps Tiles chose Hygraph as a single content infrastructure that was flexible enough for developers, structured enough for editors, and connected enough to work with the existing stack.

Hygraph now powers the content in the Topps Trade App's Flutter frontend, from the homepage and registration screens to promotional banners, carousels, and product imagery. Content is structured and reusable, and variants and personalization logic built into the content model mean each type of trade customer gets an experience designed for them.

Hygraph in action

• Trade-led content: Variants and personalization logic in the content model tailor the app to different trade types, working alongside Bloomreach for segmentation and CRM.

• Content federation: Magento remains the source of truth for product data. Titles, descriptions, and images are pulled in through Remote Sources, so nothing is duplicated or goes out of sync.

• Localization: Product translations are stored in Hygraph and referenced through a custom editor tool.

• Safe, controlled releases: Approval workflows run across environments, and scheduled releases keep campaigns on time.

• Confidence before launch: Preview shows the team exactly how content will render in the app before it goes live.

The result: an app that stays fresh, personal, and easy to run

The Topps Trade App now accounts for 50% of Topps Tiles’ digital trade sales. Tradespeople buy in-store, online, and from their phone on site, and the app meets them where they are, backed by structured content built to reach any channel.

Hygraph is where the Topps Trade App's day-to-day content lives. The team uses it to merchandise the app, managing the homepage, promotional banners, and carousels from one place. Each trade type sees the content that matters to them, so a tiler and a builder get a different view of the same app without the team duplicating anything.

It also powers the offers behind the app's loyalty program. Monthly offers are created and scheduled in Hygraph and sent out through the app, connected to the Rewards+ loyalty system, so customers see the right offers at the right time. Editors can build a campaign in advance, preview exactly how it will look in the app, and release it on schedule.

The result is a content team that can run the app themselves, with developers free to focus on building rather than on content changes.

Tech stack

• Hygraph: Structured content layer for the B2B mobile app
• Flutter: Mobile app framework
• Magento: Product data source, connected via Remote Sources
• Bloomreach: Segmentation, personalization, CRM, and marketing automation