Young women's apparel e-retailer Charlotte Russe was looking for a way to dress up the What's Hot section of its site that showcases a series of new outfits each week. By implementing a new system that lets shoppers buy pieces and see magnified details of products without leaving the section, the retailer has fashioned some solid results.
Shoppers who visit the newly updated What's Hot section generate 300% more sales than those who don't and purchase 10% more items per order, says Craig Gillan, director of e-commerce for Charlotte Russe.
The system, called Allurent on Demand from e-commerce technology vendor Allurent Inc., also has saved Charlotte Russe time. Before the retailer deployed Allurent On Demand, updates to the What's Hot section required an I.T. employee and it took about eight hours to add five new outfits weekly. Now, merchandising and marketing staff or any other staff members can make the changes and the process only takes about two hours, Gillan says.
"Everything is all inclusive, we can just change one outfit and can swap out outfits very easily," Gillan says. "Now I have eight more hours of technical resources available to work on banners ads or other projects."
Beyond freeing up I.T. staff time, one of the biggest benefits of the system is that it takes less effort for a shopper to add an item to her bag, Gillan says. For example, many sites that showcase outfits require users to navigate to a product page for each piece, select a size and add the item to the bag. Others aren't clickable and a shopper might have to remember what, say, a red sweater looked like and find it in the sweater section of the site. The Allurent feature lets users access sizes, descriptions, see alternate and close up views with a rollover magnifying tool and add an item to her basket. The tool is delivered as a software as a service and fees are based on the number of shoppers who visit the section.
Gillan says the old Charlotte Russe What's Hot section used a Flash-based widget, where users could click on links to access product pages for each piece of an outfit. But Gillan says shoppers were looking for something more convenient.
"We knew through case studies that our customers like to see outfits, but that they want to be able to shop directly from them," Gillian says.
Gillan says once the Allurent tool is implemented on the back end, it's easy to add to other sections of the site. For example, the retailer is using the tool for a special boutique, People's Liberation, which is located within the Charlotte Russe site. Gillan says the tool is customizable, offering many options to change the look and feel with different picture sizes, rollover options and colors. He says he's thinking about using it for other areas of the site, too.
Charlotte Russe put a high priority on updating the What's Hot section because it knows that shoppers are looking to do more than just buy at its web site. They are looking for fashion advice as well, Gillan says.
"We put up surveys on our site and they told us shoppers are looking for guidance. And also it's just natural because of our age demographic," Gillan says. "14-, 15- or 16 year-olds aren't yet fashion savvy and are looking to some extent to us to help them increase their fashion knowledge."
Charlotte Russe is No. 464 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide.
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