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How Showpo found the key to boosting conversion

Fun, fashion-forward online retailer Showpo hit the scene 11 years ago and has since become one of Australia’s most successful and much-loved e-commerce businesses, with millions of loyal social media followers and customers. 

But since the pandemic hit, it’s clear that competition is growing in the online retail space and customers’ expectations are higher than ever. In recent years, Showpo has been on a digital transformation journey in order to remain top of mind for fashionistas. 

“It’s an ever-changing market. A lot of the population is shopping online for the first time now and they have an expectation that what they see in-store will translate into the online world,” explains Mitul Lakhani, Head of Digital Product at Showpo.

To keep up with the competition, smart retailers are investing further into developing their e-commerce systems and embarking on digital projects to quickly boost their customer experience and conversion rates. 

In fact, according to a survey conducted by the Australian Retail Outlook this year, since the pandemic, an overwhelming 70 per cent of industry respondents indicated that they are investing more in their digital business this year. 

Here are some of the successful initiatives that Showpo has worked on recently that have significantly boosted their conversion rates.

It’s all in the details

Over the past 18 months, a major focus for the team at Showpo has been on creating a frictionless customer experience and making their products more discoverable. Key to this transformation has been refining the retailer’s systems and data, making it easier for customers to find what they want.

Showpo was previously juggling multiple disparate platforms that weren’t talking to each other and processes that were prone to human error, leading to data inaccuracies. Mitul and Showpo’s CTO Lachlan Smith embarked on a journey to transform their tech stack to address these legacy issues and improve their customer-facing applications such as their website and mobile apps.

As a result, product data is more structured and easily filtered, allowing consumers to quickly find the products they’re looking for. Improving the accuracy of product attributes (such as material, colour, style, length, occasion, etc.) now allow for product categorisation and facets to be automatically assigned, reducing manual work, eliminating human error and keeping product filtering clean and user-friendly. 

“All the products are in the right places now and customers can find what they want a lot more easily than before. If you go into the jumpsuits category, you know you’ll find all the jumpsuits in there,” explained Mitul.

Getting the right fit: Beyond size guides

One of the biggest challenges that fashion e-commerce retailers continue to wrestle with is solving the ‘fit’ problem, ensuring that what customers purchase on their site will actually suit their needs. At Showpo, in an effort to encourage size diversity, many of the garments on the site are displayed on two different-sized models to give customers a clearer idea of how an item may look on their body. 

Since Comestri came on board, fit data has been incorporated into the system from the very beginning of Showpo’s design and manufacturing process and customers are now given much more specific information, from waist and hip measurements to varying dress lengths.

“Showpo is aligning their products to individual customers. You could have someone who’s six-feet tall with a different body shape, but now they’re able to pick a size that’s much closer to the mark, rather than just using a size guide,” explained Ben Cook, general manager of sales and marketing at e-commerce platform, Comestri

“Size guides are great, but for some customers, it could say that they need a size L, but then when they receive the item, it’s too short in the arm.”

With the increased focus on more robust product data, customers are better equipped to make the right choice for them. This has led to a reduction in returns for Showpo, a win for any e-commerce business.

“Now that people are shopping online more often, the last thing they want to do is continually go to the post office, where they’re juggling multiple items from various retailers to return,” explained Mitul. 

While the past 18 months have been challenging for all retailers, it’s become clear that those who embrace change and flexibility will succeed in the future – regardless of how restrictions and lockdowns change.   

“I think in the last few years, we’ve really caught up with some of our larger competitors and in some cases, moved further forward,” said Mitul of Showpo’s transformation.

“Working with Comestri really allows us to push through new experiences at speed; we’ve got greater agility than before and can pivot quickly.

See Comestri in action. Book a product demonstration at Comestri.com/demo