Why e-commerce success in the designer fashion sector requires more than big data
E-commerce, by its very nature, is a technology-driven sector, so it’s understandable that there are countless technological solutions available for those looking to trade goods and services online. Some tools appear on first look to be extremely useful – with the obvious caveat that you need to feed the beast with lots of source data.
RBH senior digital account manager Sam Pootes.
Let’s go to the extreme and think of Amazon. They have around 244 million active customers worldwide. That’s a lot of data. You can get a good understanding of which products people may want and when they might want them, simply by looking at other customer purchase history in a logical way. Netflix works with a similar mind-set.
For this reason, working with online designer fashion store YBD bemused me at first. I like logic and structure and trying to put everything in its right place. However, I quickly realised that fashion does not love logic. There’s no real pattern and any learnings from one season cannot be applied to a future season with any real certainty.
If you sell hundreds or thousands of each product, like Amazon or ASOS, you can learn lots. However, if you have limited stock of new designers’ fashion every season, and each season their pieces change in line with trends, then there is much, much less that you can learn. Just because one customer purchased a Kelly Love sweater and a Jena Theo floral shirt does not mean that another customer will do the same. Individualistic fashion on YBD means that we can’t truly second-guess what customers are going to like.
I’m one of the many people currently on the three-month trial of Apple Music. I certainly have my bugbears with the software (namely on the integration with iCloud, but that’s a subject for another day). However, its absolute strength in my opinion is the integration of curated playlists alongside algorithms. Apple have got a good grasp of the strengths in technology and the workings of a human mind, which together put the right playlist right in front of my eyes.
YBD has opted to take a subtler approach to technology. We use a/b and multivariate testing, from simpler elements such as message testing, to more complicated such as page ordering and new developments.
One example where we didn’t go for a technological solution is using non-brand photography on site. With new and more daring fashion, people can be a little less sure about making that purchase. Naturally, we want to make the decision as easy as possible.
With beautiful products comes beautiful imagery, but I’m as aware as anyone that clothes often don’t look the same on my back as they do on the back of a catwalk model! We therefore turn to our panel of bloggers, who showcase some of our favourite YBD products in photography within the ‘real world’.
While these relationships have been in place for a couple of years, since we updated the YBD site in early July we have started to show more non-YBD photography in different places on the product pages, primarily using the aforementioned blogger photography. As a result, we have found that customers are three times more likely to put these items in their basket than products which don’t include this additional photography.
While the change to the product page to date has been very subtle, this is definitely a growing area of focus for YBD as we try to bring more user-generated content on site, and will no doubt go through many iterations as we continually test and improve.
Sam Poote is senior digital account manager at RBH and e-commerce marketing manager for YBD.
Content by The Drum Network member:
RBH (Rees Bradley Hepburn)
BORN IN A BARN. BRED TO DARE.
Hello. We’re RBH. We come up with killer, media-neutral ideas. Ideas that increase sales, win awards and make a real difference....