Six Things Brands Can Learn From REVOLVE’s Customer Experience
Online fashion retailer, REVOLVE, has fast gained popularity among millennial and Gen Z consumers thanks to its strong aesthetic, attention to curation and investments in influencer campaigns.
In June 2019, the eCommerce site went public and opened at $18 per share and closed at $34 on its first day of trading. By the end of the week, the company’s shares had climbed to $42.
Since then, REVOLVE has experienced some expected highs and lows in the stock market, but its overall stock value has continued to show double-digit growth.
REVOLVE’s success has come in part from its obsession with perfecting the customer experience. The platform’s eCommerce strategy offers key lessons in how brands and retailers must think about meeting the needs and demands of their customers across the spectrum.
Here are six things that have proven key to REVOLVE’s success:
1. A Bottomless Pit Of Product Discovery
REVOLVE has looked to include both popular name brands such as Free People, Steve Madden, Nike, Champion and Sam Edelman and emerging brands such as PQ, MOTHER, Autumn Cashmere and LoveShackFancy. Curating a mix of emerging designers and established labels has helped the platform create a bottomless pit for product discovery — a win-win for both customers and designers. This is because customers can stumble across designers that they may have never heard of but fit well into their style.
Customers do, however, have the ability to refine their search. They can do so by filtering by category, occasion, style, color, length and search. The option to filter by brand is available to customers but is not highly publicized.
What Brands And Retailers Can Learn More From This
Focus more on product curation. Think beyond the traditional filtering options such as category (e.g., shirts, pants, dresses), size and color. Instead, elevate your offerings by allowing customers to sort products by experiences and occasions such as weddings, dinners and work.
2. More Than Just Apparel Offerings
REVOLVE has worked to widen its offerings to include more than just apparel and footwear, jewelry, bags and accessories. The eTailer has looked to become a one-stop shop that offers beauty, health and wellness products, as well as breakout categories such as sexual wellness and feminine care.
The company’s move to diversify its offerings came as a direct response to consumers’ changing needs during the COVID-19 pandemic, as many looked to self-care routines and at-home workouts during lockdowns and quarantine.
What Brands And Retailers Can Learn From This
Hone in on the experience you want to provide. Whether it is creating a one-stop-shop for all their fashion and beauty needs or offering up at-home fitness workouts customers can engage with while wearing your fitness gear, the end goal, no matter what, should always be to create an experience that resonates, leaving them coming back for more.
3. The Option To Subscribe And Reorder
As REVOLVE has looked to expand into new categories, the eCommerce platform has sought ways to encourage repeat purchases. The company rolled out a subscribe feature, enabling customers to purchase products they need to replenish every so often.
And for those who do not need to order products on repeat but need sporadic, one-off repeated orders, REVOLVE has enabled a simple reorder option to enable quick and easy one-time orders.
What Brands And Retailers Can Learn More From This
Within the past year, roughly 167 million U.S. consumers have signed up for at least one type of subscription service to avoid shopping in physical stores. That said, take a second look at current offerings and identify the products that customers want to buy repeatedly.
4. Making Its Umbrella Sites Easily Accessible To All
The REVOLVE platform features two eCommerce sites: REVOLVE Man, a site tailored for men, while the second one is called FWRD, which is known for its curation of luxury designer items. Both sites are incredibly easy for shoppers to discover.
What Brands And Retailers Can Learn More From This
Cross-promote subsidiaries to allow for greater brand awareness and conversions. For example, ditch the simple logo placement down at the website’s footer and opt to prominently feature umbrella sites through dropdown menus and advertisements.
5. A Loyalty Program That Benefits All Of Its eCommerce Properties
The platform’s new loyalty program allows customers to earn rewards that can be redeemed across subsidiary sites.
Additionally, customers can shop and climb their way to the “Elite” status to unlock access to exclusive parties — an experience the company is known for.
What Brands And Retailers Can Learn More From This
If you have sister properties, enable your reward program across all entities. Furthermore, program perks should always make sense to the overall customer experience and have some sort of tie back to the brand’s values and/or mission.
6. Extending Access To More Than One Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) Solution
Like many sites, REVOLVE accepts all the standard forms of payments: Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, and JCB. The group also accepts PayPal, store credit, gift cards and buy now, pay later ( BNPL) solutions Klarna and Afterpay.
The move to offer BNPL solutions makes sense as millennials and Gen Z consumers make for REVOLVE’s core demographic group. But, more importantly, offering multiple BNPL solutions further increases the likelihood of a sale, especially if a customer is already signed up with one provider and would prefer to keep all payments under one account.
What Brands And Retailers Can Learn More From This
Offering the right mix of payment solutions goes a long way in converting potential sales, especially if millennials and Gen Z consumers are your target audience.
Originally published at https://retailbum.com on July 13, 2021.
