As Alight.com focuses on online marketing, sales rises beat expectations
Alight.com, a pure-play online retailer of women’s plus-size apparel, is seeing stronger-than-expected sales this year, partly due to a shift toward online instead of offline marketing, president Norman Weiss tells InternetRetailer.com.
“We had planned to be in a 20% growth rate this year, but now we’re running about 36%,” he says. “April was stronger than expected, and if May is also as strong, we may increase our growth rate to 40% or more.” Weiss says Alight expects to hit close to $2 million in sales this year, up from $1.4 million last year.
Alight tried running ads in fashion apparel print magazines and using direct-mail post cards, he says, but has found online marketing to be more effective. Instead of print, he has focused on search engine placement with more effective keywords, opt-in e-mail campaigns, links on Yahoo’s shopping portal and an affiliate marketing campaign with Commission Junction Inc.
To solicit e-mail addresses from customers, he adds, Alight has had success with a promotion on its home page that lets shoppers enter an e-mail address for the chance to win a $500 shopping spree on its web site.
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