Despite facing lowered sales and traffic due to COVID-19, The Arrivals' co-founder Jeff Johnson shares how the brand achieved a 2x spike in conversion rates. This episode provides valuable insights into adapting to market shifts, including innovative crowdsourced product development, agile communication strategies, and the unexpected benefits of delaying large-scale retail investments during uncertainty. It's a testament to finding opportunity amidst disruption for DTC brands.
Key takeaways
Analyze your sales cycles relative to external market disruptions to identify unexpected advantages, like The Arrivals did with their pre-pandemic sales season.
Focus on optimizing conversion rates during periods of reduced traffic; a higher conversion rate with a smaller audience can offset lower overall sales numbers.
Explore crowdsourcing for product development to foster community and gather direct customer input, enhancing product relevance and engagement.
Maintain agility in your retail footprint by carefully evaluating large-scale investments like flagship stores, especially in unpredictable economic climates.
Adapt your communication strategy to be empathetic and relevant to current customer needs and concerns.
If much of the retail industry is feeling squeezed by the coronavirus pandemic, outdoor apparel may be especially hard hit.
"It's been kind of a mix," Jeff Johnson, co-founder of outerwear brand The Arrivals, said on the Glossy Podcast. "Sales, even traffic, has been lower."
Johnson still manages to find positives. The company's main sales season runs from August to January or February -- this year, that was before the pandemic was declared. And while the average order value has gone down, he said, order numbers are up. In other words, within a smaller group of online visitors, more people are making actual purchases.
"For the last two weeks, we've seen a 2x spike in conversion," Johnson said.
He talked about how the company is crowd-sourcing the apparel design process, how it's changing its communications and why he's thankful that The Arrivals didn't end up opening a flagship store just before the pandemic.
Analyze your sales cycles relative to external market disruptions to identify unexpected advantages, like The Arrivals did with their pre-pandemic sales season.
What does this episode say about conversion & cro?
Focus on optimizing conversion rates during periods of reduced traffic; a higher conversion rate with a smaller audience can offset lower overall sales numbers.
What does this episode say about founder & leadership?
Explore crowdsourcing for product development to foster community and gather direct customer input, enhancing product relevance and engagement.
What does this episode say about dtc strategy?
Maintain agility in your retail footprint by carefully evaluating large-scale investments like flagship stores, especially in unpredictable economic climates.
What does this episode say about dtc strategy?
Adapt your communication strategy to be empathetic and relevant to current customer needs and concerns.
