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17 Ecommerce Case Studies to Inspire You

May 16, 2024

We’ve spent hundreds of hours analyzing the world’s most successful DTC companies and ecommerce brands, including Sephora, Dollar Shave Club, Casper, Warby Parker, and Allbirds, to create ecommerce case studies you can use as inspiration for your own online store.

Today, we’ll share with you the 17 best ecommerce case studies that you can use to help drive more visitors to your website and convert more customers.

Let’s get right into it!

1. The Farmer’s Dog marketing strategy: 6 tactics that you can apply in your own business

The Farmer’s Dog was founded in 2014 by two dog lovers. 6 years later, they’re delivering millions of meals monthly.

How did they do it?

We analyzed their sales funnel and boiled it down to 6 lessons you can apply in your own business to generate more sales.

Read the full The Farmer’s Dog case study .

2. The secret behind the Care/of marketing strategy

Every small ecommerce site owner dreams about a success story like Care/of’s. They achieved a $225 million valuation and were acquired by Bayer in just 6 years.

In this case study, we analyze the marketing strategies that Care/of used, including:

Quiz funnel
Content marketing
Social media
Paid advertising

Get inspired by these strategies to grow your own online sales.

Read the full Care/of case study .

3. Dollar Shave Club marketing success

Dollar Shave Club is one of the most talked-about DTC brands, and with good reason. Their famous “our blades are f***ing great” video went viral in just a few days. The video went on to collect 4.75 million views in the first 3 months and has over 27 million views today.

This launch video gave them a killer head start, and their witty brand voice, strong content marketing campaigns, and direct-to-consumer business model enabled them to grow further. They were so successful that Unilever bought the company in a billion-dollar cash acquisition in 2016.

In this case study, we cover everything you need to know about Dollar Shave Club’s marketing game plan to build your own billion-dollar empire.

Read the full Dollar Shave Club case study .

4. How Casper took the mattress industry by storm and reached a $1.1 billion valuation

In this case study, you’ll get a sneak peek into how Casper was able to build unprecedented trust and convince people to purchase mattresses online.

We look at their well-rounded content marketing strategy, which covers topics of interest for visitors at every stage of the buyer’s journey.

We also discuss how they utilize social proof to build trust, their unbeatable guarantee, and their referral marketing strategies . Don’t miss this one!

Read the full Casper case study .

5. How Glossier became a $1.2 billion company

Glossier is one of our favorite ecommerce case studies. If you have a beauty brand, you’ll want to read it.

We’ve studied Glossier’s entire customer experience to find 5 lessons you can use for your own brand:

Know your target audience and build relationships with them
Use (micro-) influencer marketing
Focus on branding
Publish engaging content
Provide an amazing user experience

Click the link below for all the juicy details.

Read the full Glossier case study .

6. How Happy Box 10x-ed their online store revenue during Covid

Happy Box is not as well-known as some of the other ecommerce stores on this list, but its growth is bound to inspire you.

The company started as a side project and grew into a full-time ecommerce business during the Covid pandemic. In fact, they were able to achieve a 10x growth rate in 2021!

In this case study, we look at the marketing blueprint behind their astounding success.

Read the full Happy Box case study .

7. How Warby Parker reached a $3 billion valuation and became an ecommerce giant

The idea of buying eyeglasses online was uncharted territory for consumers a decade ago. But Warby Parker’s phenomenal marketing helped to overcome that challenge.

Their website crashed just after its official launch, their top 15 most popular styles sold out within 4 weeks, and they collected a waitlist of 20,000 customers during that time.

In this post, we share the key strategy Warby Parker used to reach its target audience so quickly and went on to become the $3-billion giant everyone knows.

Read the full Warby Parker case study .

8. 4 steps for growing your brand organically using ColourPop’s marketing strategy

In this case study, we share 4 key takeaways from ColourPop’s winning social media strategy:

Give freebies in exchange for authentic reviews
Build meaningful relationships with your influencers
Get your hashtag trending
Host Instagram giveaways

Check out the tips that you can easily copy for your own ecommerce company.

Read the full ColourPop case study .

9. Replicate Urban Outfitters’ marketing strategy with these 4 tips

Urban Outfitters is different from a lot of the ecommerce brands on this list because they didn’t start online and grow into a global retail giant… instead, they started as a brick-and-mortar business (back in 1970) and managed to make the successful transition to online sales.

It’s worth talking about them because they’re fantastic at keeping in touch with their target audience (Millennials and Gen Z). They also succeed in strengthening customer loyalty with a rewards program.

Check out this case study to learn how you can do the same with your business to drive sales.

Read the full Urban Outfitters case study .

10. How Gymshark bulked up into a $1 billion+ brand

Gymshark is well known for its influencer marketing strategy. In fact, the company was one of the early adopters of influencer marketing.

In this case study, we cover how Gymshark managed to build its fan base, and we spill the beans on what they’re still doing today to delight customers. Check out our 6 key takeaways below!

Read the full Gymshark case study .

11. How Allbirds went from a small startup to a billion-dollar sneaker brand in 4 years

Allbirds is among the most popular ecommerce businesses, especially among circles of professionals in Silicon Valley, including Google co-founder Larry Page. The company differentiates itself from competitors by focusing on three important principles:

Simple design
Sustainable shoes, made from nature

Check out this case study to learn how they fight with their competitors, how they use PR campaigns and word-of-mouth marketing to get people talking about the brand, and more.

Read the full Allbirds case study .

12. How Lunya achieved $25M revenue

Lunya was able to disrupt the women’s sleepwear industry quickly by creating products that bridge the gap between style and sensibility. According to Lunya co-founder Ashley Merrill, the brand was able to grow by putting customers first and never losing sight of the customer’s perspective.

We analyzed the steps Lunya took to build their brand and create a successful customer-centric strategy.

Read the full Lunya case study .

13. 6+1 tips from Rituals to create meaningful moments online

Rituals, founded in 2000, has an impressive product line including skincare, body care, makeup, and scented candles.

They really care about their customers and focus on creating an engaging customer experience online. We wanted to find out how they do it, so in this case study, we explore 6+1 tips from the marketing masters at Rituals.

Read the full Rituals case study .

14. 13 solid tips for mastering the art of personalization like Sephora

Sephora is a cosmetic behemoth that we can all learn from. What’s the secret behind their worldwide success?

In this case study, we share 13 tips they use to delight customers and create loyalty, including:

Driving sales through personalization
Helping customers make informed purchasing decisions
Using YouTube to drive conversions
Nurturing long-term customer relationships

Read the full Sephora case study .

15. How Alo Yoga scaled to $247M in revenue

Alo Yoga is an athleisure brand known for its “studio-to-street” clothing, making it perfect for both yoga sessions and everyday wear. Founded in 2007 in Los Angeles, Alo Yoga has grown steadily, now boasting an annual revenue of $247.1M and 3 million Instagram followers.

In this ecommerce case study, we’ll share the key marketing strategies that have fueled Alo Yoga’s success.

You can discover their community-building tactics, how they leveraged user-generated content, created personalized experiences for visitors, and more.

Read the full Alo Yoga case study.

16. Bloom & Wild’s marketing strategy to become the 2nd fastest-growing startup

Bloom & Wild, an online florist operating in the UK, Austria, France, Germany, and Ireland, has become one of the fastest-growing online stores in its category. In 2021, the company raised $102 million in investment capital.

Bloom & Wild achieved this impressive business growth by focusing on:

Caring about their customers
Increasing on brand awareness with TV campaigns and dominating search results
Customizing content for each social media channel
Encouraging referrals
Building loyalty with a subscription model

Read the full Bloom & Wild case study.

17. How SNOW® Teeth Whitening achieved $100M in online sales

SNOW® Teeth Whitening is a DTC oral care brand focused on delivering professional-level whitening with an at-home kit.

Founded by Josh Elizetxe (a.k.a. Josh Snow) in 2017, SNOW® has quickly gained millions of fans. Over 13 million people shopped SNOW® products in 2021 alone, and by 2020, the company hit $100 million in sales after just three years online.

So, how did SNOW® achieve such significant growth?

In this ecommerce case study, you’ll learn how:

They focus on creating and continually improving a product that meets customer needs.
Each ad SNOW® puts out highlights the pain points that their product solves.
They diversify channels.
They leverage owned media for customer engagement.
They collaborate with A-list celebrities to build brand awareness and credibility.

Read the full SNOW® case study.

Final thoughts

Well, that’s it—these are the best ecommerce case studies we’ve found during our extensive research! Hopefully you’ve found plenty of inspiration on this list.

No matter how big (or small) your company is or what industry you’re in, you can use tips and strategies from these ecommerce case studies in your own store.

Which ecommerce case study is your favorite?

What should you do next?

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15 Best Ecommerce Case Studies to Learn From (2024)

Inspiration.

This word is often repeated by successful entrepreneurs when they’re describing their way to the top. And it’s a powerful word.

The best way to succeed in business is to learn from the ones who already achieved that. Get inspired by their ideas, ups and downs, and learn more about their approach to overcoming obstacles.

That’s why we decided to gather 15 inspiring ecommerce case studies that every marketer should learn from.

Below, you’ll find inspiring stories of successful online stores. Who knows, maybe one day your company will get on such a list.

In this article we’ll go through the following case studies:

How Ad Hoc Atelier boosted conversions using live chat
Dollar Shave Club—the secret behind their marketing success
Procosmet boosts lead generation after installing Tidio
Glossier’s way to become a $1.2 billion company
Shockbyte slashes response times with Tidio chatbots
How Gymshark bulked up into a $1B+ brand
How Lunya achieved $25M revenue
Key factors of Sephora’s online store success
Allbirds’s way to become a billion-dollar sneaker brand
How Warby Parker reached a $B valuation
Story of Happy Box’s online store success
Amerisleep’s approach to increase checkouts by 14%
How Envelopes.Com leveraged checkout conversions
How Beardbrand established their earnings at $120,000 per month
How Frank Body achieved $20M in annual sales by investing in content marketing

Boost sales in your ecommerce store with chatbots

If you are interested in more insights about ecommerce businesses, be sure to check out the following articles:

10 Best Practices for Ecommerce Customer Service
10+ Must-Know Ecommerce Statistics [Report]
8 Top Ecommerce Platforms Compared & Reviewed

Before we start exploring the best ecommerce case studies, let’s take a step back and answer a simple question—

What is a case study in ecommerce?

In the context of ecommerce, a case study refers to an in-depth analysis of a particular company, project, or situation related to the online retail industry. It involves examining a specific scenario, identifying the challenges, exploring the strategies used to overcome the obstacles, and evaluating the outcomes.

Here’s an example of a case study. This one is about the growth possibilities that Lyro, new conversational AI , can bring to small and medium ecommerce businesses.

A case study in ecommerce typically focuses on real-life examples to provide insights into various aspects of an online business. These include marketing, customer service, logistics, technology implementation, and overall business performance. As such, these studies often highlight successful ecommerce companies or initiatives, showcasing best practices, innovative approaches, and lessons learned.

Having all the basic information covered, let’s jump to the main topic of the article—examples of the best ecommerce case studies.

15 ecommerce case studies: examples and descriptions

Each of the ecommerce business cases discussed below offers unique insights into how to thrive in the ever-evolving landscape of the industry. So, prepare yourself for a series of enlightening experiences and transformative strategies that could very well inspire the next big thing in your own ecommerce venture.

These case studies on ecommerce brands showcase a wide range of achievements, innovative strategies, and effective solutions that have helped businesses attain tremendous success in their respective sectors.

1. How Ad Hoc Atelier boosted conversions using live chat

Ad Hoc Atelier is an Italian ecommerce platform offering exclusive clothing collections and accessories. The company was founded in 2011 and, during its development path, decided to use live chat tools to increase sales.

More than satisfying. With the help of live chat software , the company managed to increase the conversion rate from 0.35% to 0.9% . Moreover, they reduced cart abandonment rate from 83% to 73% and decreased the average response time from 3h to 1 minute .

The biggest challenge that Ad Hoc Atelier had faced was that more than 4 out of 5 carts on the website were abandoned, which is higher than the industry average — 70% . This was caused by the long response times, cold and generic emails, and the fact that people didn’t want to communicate through phone calls.

The company decided to change that and focus on a more personalized approach to customers, direct messaging, and short response time. What was the outcome?

Boost in customer engagement

The Ad Hoc Atelier team decided to add a live chat button to their ecommerce website to help visitors through their buyer’s journey. Thanks to that, they were able to recreate the experience of an assistant coming over when you walk into the physical store to help with some suggestions.

This replication of the physical shopping experience in the online store led the company to improve their customer satisfaction and conversion rates.

Goodbye to abandoned carts

The team defeated the worst nightmare of every ecommerce owner — abandoned carts . And achieved that with the help of sales chatbots .

Their shopping cart abandonment rate dropped by 10%.

Slashed response time

With the help of live chat tools, the team managed to respond to their customers within a minute at any time of the day. Thanks to that, the company makes the most out of the traffic on its website. Also, live chat helps them increase conversion rate, catch new selling opportunities, and maintain a high quality of every conversation.

Use chatbots to generate more leads for your online store

Read more: This is only a short description of what Ad Hoc Atelier achieved thanks to Tidio tools. Be sure to check out the full case study to get details of how the company increased the conversion rate with live chat and chatbot solutions.

2. Dollar Shave Club—the secret behind their marketing success

Dollar Shave Club is a subscription-based ecommerce company that primarily focuses on providing men’s grooming products. The company was founded in 2011 with the goal of offering affordable, high-quality razors and other personal care products directly to consumers.

The company is one of the most famous D2C (direct-to-consumer) brands in the world and surely deserves that status. Once they published the video “Our blades are f***ing great”, it became viral within just a few days!

And, although the video is from 2012, Dollar Shave Club is still using this slogan. Just look at their website.

But only one catchy slogan won’t make your company a successful business. So, what lies behind the massive success of Dollar Shave Club? Let’s take a closer look at three essential points of this ecommerce marketing case study.

Perfectly prepared unique value proposition (UVP)

Dollar Shave Club emphasized its value proposition of providing high-quality razors at an affordable price, delivered conveniently to customers’ doors. They addressed the pain points of their target audience by offering a cost-effective alternative to expensive razor brands and the inconvenience of in-store purchases.

Subscription model

Dollar Shave Club’s subscription model allowed customers to conveniently receive razor refills on a regular basis, eliminating the hassle of remembering to buy new razors. This model not only ensured customer loyalty but also provided recurring revenue for the company.

Data-driven marketing

The business also utilized data and analytics to optimize marketing efforts. This is essential while streamlining marketing or sales funnels—in fact, 77% of professionals say they track their acquisition and sales funnel performance as part of their analytics. The Dollar Shave Club team tracked customer behaviors, preferences, and purchasing patterns to personalize marketing messages, improve targeting, and refine their overall marketing strategy.

All these strategies helped the Dollar Shave Club team build brand awareness, attract new prospects, retain customers, and establish the company as a major player in the men’s grooming industry.

3. Procosmet boosts lead generation after installing chatbots

Procosmet is a luxury brand offering haircare and beauty treatment products for a variety of needs. These include shampoos, conditioners, and vial treatments that are 100% natural and made with the purest of essential oils.

The business started with an idea of a blue glass vial for essential oils and active principles. Procosmet is now divided into two brands, Napura and MTJ, which create care products inspired by nature.

Thanks to chatbots and live chat solutions provided by Tidio, Procosmet managed to significantly improve its main success indicators. These include five times higher lead generation per month and a 27% increase in conversion rates . On top of that, one-third of their revenue is now made thanks to Tidio tools!

But how did they achieve that? Let’s get into the details.

The main challenge the Procosmet team faced was managing orders. Such tasks as canceling, modifying, and refunding were very time-consuming for support agents. That’s because they had to do it “manually”—ask for the order number, open the Shopify store, search for the order, and make the requested changes.

That’s why the Procosmet team decided to let the automation tools help their representatives with repetitive tasks. And it turned out to be a great decision.

Boost in sales

Before installing Tidio on their website, Procosmet used to gather about 10–30 leads per month. But, when they switched to Tidio as their customer service automation provider, the number of leads increased to over 100 prospects!

Also, with the help of the newsletter chatbot and Tidio’s email marketing tool, the company achieved, just out of a one-off campaign, a return on investment of over a 1,000EUR.

Stable conversion rates

Procosmet also struggled with a lot of spikes in the conversion metrics. That was problematic especially when planning sales goals for the next months, analyzing marketing campaigns, etc. But once they implemented Tidio+ , the problem disappeared.

Read more: Be sure to check out the full story to learn about all the benefits Procosmet experienced using Tidio .

4. Glossier’s way to become a $1.2 billion company

Glossier is a beauty and skincare brand that has gained popularity for its minimalist and inclusive approach to beauty products. Founded by Emily Weiss in 2014, Glossier aims to create a more personalized and simplified beauty experience for its customers.

But how did Glossier manage to grow that much?

Let’s get into details of one of the most inspiring ecommerce conversion rate optimization case studies.

One key factor in Glossier’s success was its D2C model. This strategy was powered by cutting out traditional retail channels and selling directly to customers through its website and physical stores. Thanks to that approach, Glossier was able to maintain control over the entire customer experience and gather valuable data on consumer preferences.

Strong presence in social media

Glossier also prioritized building a strong online community and cultivating a sense of inclusivity. Through social media platforms, particularly Instagram, Glossier encouraged user-generated content and engaged with followers, creating a sense of authenticity and trust. This approach helped the brand to resonate with millennial and Gen Z consumers who were seeking a more personalized and relatable beauty experience.

Focus on customer feedback

Furthermore, Glossier emphasized the importance of customer feedback and product iteration. The company actively listened to its customers, taking their suggestions and needs into account when developing new products or improving existing ones. This iterative approach allowed Glossier to continuously evolve its offerings and maintain a loyal customer base.

As a result, Glossier successfully carved out a niche in the beauty industry and achieved remarkable growth, ultimately reaching a valuation of $1.2 billion . But it wouldn’t happen if not for the masterly combination of a strong D2C strategy, a focus on community building, an inclusive and relatable brand image, and a commitment to customer feedback.

5. Shockbyte slashes response times with Tidio chatbots

Shockbyte is a leading game server provider known particularly for Minecraft hosting. The company provides high-performance server hosting services at affordable prices to gamers and server owners globally. Apart from Minecraft, Shockbyte also offers server hosting for games like ARK: Survival Evolved, Rust, and more.

But how did Shockbyte benefit from using chatbot solutions? Here are the results of one of our own ecommerce digital marketing case studies:

Focus on increasing customer satisfaction

First and foremost, the Shockbyte team decided to put an emphasis on customer satisfaction. In fact, they managed to boost this metric by 16% within the first few months of using the tool.

"Our customer satisfaction saw a healthy 16% increase—this is despite us having some of our busiest months this year." Mitch Smith Founder of Shockbyte

Slashing response time

You won’t build a positive brand experience if you make your clients wait hours for an answer. And Shockbyte knows that. By implementing a chatbot widget on their website, they managed to decrease the waiting times by a whopping 26%.

It was possible thanks to the “nature” of chatbots and support requests. Significant part of the questions applied to the same issue and could be solved with the same answer. And that’s the place where chatbots come into play. They allow companies to respond to the most commonly asked questions automatically and within seconds.

Sales boosted by bots

The Shockbyte team decided to go further and use conversational bots to increase sales. With the help of chatbots, they managed to approach potential customers browsing specific product pages. Also, supported by AI chatbot automation , they tested out a variety of sales tactics powered by AI to find the most efficient way of gathering prospects.

And last but not least, by using sophisticated analytics tools, the Shockbyte team managed to categorize chats with their customers. Thanks to that, support and sales agents are provided with the essential customer information pack when they enter the conversation with them.

Read more: Read the full case study in which we describe Shockbyte’s success story .

6. How Gymshark bulked up into a $1B+ brand

Gymshark is a fitness apparel and accessories brand that has gained significant popularity in the sports industry. Founded in 2012 by Ben Francis and his friends, Gymshark has become a global brand known for its stylish and functional activewear.

One of the key factors in Gymshark’s success was its ability to tap into the fitness and wellness trend. The brand started selling gym apparel from Ben’s garage but quickly gained traction by catering to the fitness community’s needs for stylish, functional, and affordable workout clothing.

But what made them so successful in the competitive fitness industry? Let’s take a closer look at one of the most intriguing ecommerce case study examples.

Perfectly tailored marketing strategy

Gymshark’s marketing strategy played a crucial role in its growth. The brand leveraged social media platforms like Instagram and YouTube to showcase its products’ functionalities and engage with its target audience.

Gymshark’s user-generated content (UGC), featuring fitness enthusiasts wearing their clothing, created a strong sense of community and authenticity. This approach resonated with fitness enthusiasts who felt a connection to the brand and its values.

Collaborations with influencers

Influencer marketing also played a significant role in Gymshark’s rise to success. The brand collaborated with fitness influencers and athletes who aligned with its brand image and target market.

The partnerships with influencers helped Gymshark reach a wider audience and gain exposure in the fitness community.

Agility and adaptability of the brand

Furthermore, Gymshark’s agility and adaptability were also key factors in its success. The brand consistently listened to its customers, actively seeking feedback and making improvements based on their input. This iterative approach allowed Gymshark to continuously evolve its product range, expanding beyond gym wear to include athleisure and lifestyle apparel.

Overall, Gymshark’s success as a $1B+ brand can be attributed to its strategic marketing efforts, strong online presence, influencer collaborations, commitment to its target audience, and adaptability in response to customer feedback. By effectively tapping into the fitness and wellness market and creating a community-driven brand, Gymshark established itself as a prominent player in the industry.

7. Lunya, a luxury loungewear brand that achieved $25M revenue

Lunya is a clothing brand that aims to redefine comfort and style for modern women. Founded by Ashley Merrill in 2014, Lunya focuses on creating high-quality, functional, and aesthetically pleasing sleepwear and loungewear that can be worn both inside and outside the home.

So, what makes Lunya’s ecommerce store so successful? Let’s dive into more details of this ecommerce case study.

Well-planned D2C model

Lunya’s D2C model played a significant role in its revenue growth. By bypassing traditional retail channels and selling directly to consumers through its website, Lunya was able to control the entire customer experience . This approach allowed the brand to build direct relationships with customers , gather data on teams’ preferences, and provide personalized shopping experiences. The D2C model also allowed Lunya to maintain higher profit margins to reinvest in product development and marketing.

Astonishing customer experience

Additionally, Lunya placed a strong emphasis on customer experience and engagement. The brand prioritized exceptional customer service, providing detailed product information, size guides, and responsive support. Lunya actively sought customer feedback, making adjustments to its products and services based on the insights provided. This customer-centric approach fostered loyalty and word-of-mouth recommendations, driving revenue growth.

Read more: Learn how to build an excellent customer experience strategy to provide the best possible shopping experience.

Effective marketing strategy

Lunya also leveraged digital marketing strategies effectively. The brand utilized social media platforms, influencer collaborations, content marketing, and SEO to build brand awareness and engage with its target audience. By partnering with influencers and leveraging user-generated content, Lunya expanded its reach and credibility, particularly among millennial and Gen Z consumers.

Read more: Read more about improving customer engagement with dedicated customer service chatbots .

Through a combination of the featured tactics, Lunya achieved $25 million in revenue. The brand focused on delivering a luxurious and elevated sleep experience, alongside ensuring a strong online presence and customer engagement. This allowed Lunya to carve out a niche in the sleepwear market and attract a loyal customer base.

8. Key factors of Sephora’s online store success

Sephora is a leading multinational beauty retailer known for its wide range of cosmetics, skincare, haircare, and fragrance products. It was founded in France in 1969 and has since become a global beauty destination with stores in numerous countries. Sephora offers an extensive selection of beauty brands, including both established names and emerging, independent companies.

The story behind Sephora’s online store success lies in its strategic approach to embracing ecommerce and catering to the needs of their beauty-savvy customers. Now, let’s go through the three key factors that contributed to Sephora’s online store success.

Seamless user experience

Sephora prioritized creating a seamless and user-friendly online shopping experience. Their online store was designed with intuitive navigation, comprehensive product information, and personalized recommendations. They optimized the website for different devices and platforms (iOS, Android), ensuring a consistent and convenient experience for customers.

Social media engagement

The beauty giant’s team actively engaged with their customers on social media platforms, creating a community of beauty enthusiasts. Sephora responded to customer queries, shared user-generated content, and provided real-time updates on promotions and new releases through social channels. This social media presence amplified brand visibility and fostered a sense of connection with the audience.

Read more: Learn how to automate customer service activities like answering product-related questions on social media with the help of conversational tools.

Continuous innovation and adaptation

The brand also consistently embraced technological advancements and market trends to enhance the online store. Sephora introduced features such as augmented reality, chatbots , and personalized product recommendations to stay ahead of the competition and provide a cutting-edge shopping experience.

And there you have it—multiple strategies Sephora used to successfully build a thriving online store.

The strategic approach has enabled the company to cater to the evolving needs of beauty enthusiasts, providing a convenient, personalized, and engaging shopping experience that sets them apart in the industry.

9. Allbirds’s way to become a billion-dollar sneaker brand

Allbirds is a footwear company that specializes in producing sustainable and comfortable shoes. They are known for their minimalist designs and use of eco-friendly materials.

Allbirds achieved remarkable growth, going from a small startup to a billion-dollar sneaker brand in just four years. But how did they do it?

Let’s take a closer look at the foundations of their huge blast.

Unique product offering

Allbirds differentiated itself by creating comfortable, eco-friendly sneakers made from renewable materials like merino wool and eucalyptus fibers. The brand combined sustainable practices with minimalist design, appealing to consumers seeking both style and eco solutions.

Word-of-mouth marketing

Word-of-mouth marketing is a powerful tool for staying on top of the numerous ecommerce brands in your niche. And Allbirds knows that. The brand focused on creating exceptional products that generated positive customer experiences, leading to enthusiastic recommendations and social media buzz. Influencers and celebrities also played a role in promoting Allbirds, further amplifying its brand awareness.

Innovative marketing strategies

The company employed creative marketing strategies to stand out in a competitive market. For instance, they used humor and storytelling in their advertising campaigns (on Google Ads, social media platforms), highlighting the unique features and benefits of their products. Allbirds also leveraged social media platforms to engage with shoppers, share their sustainability mission, and showcase user-generated content.

And here we are. By combining the above strategies and tactics, Allbirds experienced exceptional growth, becoming a billion-dollar sneaker brand within a short span of four years.

10. How Warby Parker reached a $1.7B valuation

Warby Parker is an eyewear company that specializes in offering stylish and affordable prescription glasses, sunglasses, and contact lenses. The company disrupted the traditional eyewear market with a unique direct-to-consumer model, including a Home Try-On program. Also, this eyewear mogul seamlessly merges e-commerce with select physical storefronts, emphasizing both fashion and social responsibility.

Here are the key factors that contributed to its success.

Seamless online experience

Warby Parker prioritized creating a seamless online shopping experience by investing in user-friendly website design. The brand also offered virtual try-on tools that allowed customers to verify multiple frames before making a purchase decision. The combination of convenience and a hassle-free shopping process contributed to its success as an ecommerce platform.

Customer-centric approach

Warby Parker revolutionized the eyewear industry with its customer-centric approach by introducing a Home Try-On program, allowing individuals to test frames at home before buying. They combined transparent, affordable pricing with a commitment to social responsibility through their “Buy a Pair, Give a Pair” initiative.

Even as a digital-first brand, they seamlessly integrated brick-and-mortar experiences, ensuring personalized service at every touchpoint.

Read more: Discover how to measure customer satisfaction in 6 easy steps .

Data-driven decision-making process

Warby Parker leveraged data analytics to make informed business decisions. The company collected and analyzed customer data to gain insights into client preferences, purchasing behaviors, and market trends. This allowed Warby Parker to optimize its product offerings, marketing strategies, and inventory management.

Read more: If you’re looking for customer database software , be sure to check out our list of the best solutions in this category.

By combining an effective business model with a strong brand identity, a customer-centric approach, Warby Parker achieved a $1.7 billion valuation and established itself as a leading ecommerce site in the eyewear industry.

11. Story of Happy Box’s online store success

This case study for ecommerce presents a story of Happy Box —a bespoke gifting company. They create expertly crafted gifts, sent in a few clicks. The company significantly increased its online store revenue by implementing various strategies that resulted in a tenfold growth.

But how did they achieve it?

Enhanced customer support and communication

The company prioritized providing exceptional customer support. Happy Socks improved their response time to inquiries and ensured effective communication throughout the customer journey . This focus on offering quality support helped to build trust and loyalty, contributing to increased online sales.

Implementation of customer retention strategies

In addition, Happy Box implemented strategies to retain existing customers and encourage repeat purchases. They offered loyalty programs, exclusive discounts, and special promotions to reward customer loyalty. By prioritizing customer retention , Happy Box generated a consistent stream of revenue from repeat customers.

Continuous testing and optimization

The company conducted testing and optimization to improve its online store performance. They analyzed customer data, monitored their ecommerce conversion rates , tracked landing pages performance, and implemented changes based on data-driven insights. This iterative approach allowed them to continually enhance their website and marketing strategies to maximize revenue.

By implementing all these strategies and managing the omnichannel marketing project, Happy Box created a $100M dollar business. Their focus on improving the customer experience, expanding product offerings, and implementing effective marketing strategies contributed to their significant growth and success.

12. Amerisleep’s approach to increase checkouts by 14%

Amerisleep is a well-known mattress and sleep products brand. They specialize in designing and manufacturing high-quality mattresses, adjustable beds, pillows, and other sleep-related accessories. The company is committed to providing clients with a comfortable and restful sleep experience by combining innovative technologies, eco-friendly materials, and a focus on customer satisfaction.

Thanks to their inventive approach to presenting the benefits of their products, they managed to increase checkouts in their online store by 14% .

But was it the only reason for their massive success?

Of course not. Let’s dive into the foundations of Amerisleep’s great results in the ecommerce industry.

Cart abandonment recovery

Amerisleep implemented shopping cart abandonment recovery strategies, such as sending automated email reminders to customers who added items to their cart but did not complete the purchase. These emails can include personalized incentives, such as discounts or free shipping, to entice customers to return and finalize their order.

Mobile optimization

Given the increasing prevalence of mobile shopping, Amerisleep also optimized its checkout process for mobile devices. They implemented a responsive design, ensuring that their website and checkout pages are user-friendly and visually appealing on smartphones and tablets.

A/B testing and conversion optimization

Amerisleep employed A/B testing and conversion rate optimization techniques. This involved experimenting with different design elements, popup ads, layout variations, copywriting, and pricing strategies to identify the most effective combinations.

It’s important to note that without access to specific details of Amerisleep’s strategies, the above points are speculative but commonly utilized practices in ecommerce to increase checkout rates. The actual methods employed by Amerisleep may vary, but these general approaches can serve as potential insights into their success.

13. How Envelopes.com leveraged checkout conversions

Envelopes.com is an online retailer that specializes in selling a wide variety of envelopes, packaging items, office supplies, and other related products. The company serves individuals, businesses, organizations, and event planners who require a wide selection of products.

Their offerings encompass both standard and special envelopes, along with customization services, to meet various mailing, packaging, and stationery needs.

The company achieved a 40% increase in conversions . How?

Let’s find out in this case study of ecommerce.

Abandoned cart emails

Envelopes.com implemented an effective abandoned cart email strategy. When a customer adds items to their cart but doesn’t complete the purchase, the company sends follow-up emails reminding them of the items left behind. These emails include persuasive messaging, personalized recommendations, and sometimes offered incentives like discounts or free shipping to encourage customers to complete their checkout.

Personalized recommendations and cross-selling/upselling

The use of data to provide personalized product recommendations significantly improved the shopping experience, leading to increased conversions . Additionally, by implementing cross-selling and upselling strategies, Envelopes.com was able to boost the average order value (AOV), leading to increased revenue.

A/B testing and optimization of email campaigns

Envelopes.com continuously conducted A/B testing and optimization to improve their follow-up strategies. They experimented with different email templates, subject lines, incentives, and timing to identify the most effective approaches that would attract their subscribers and new customers. By analyzing data and implementing changes based on the insights, they refined their follow-up tactics to maximize conversions.

These strategies helped them recover potentially lost sales, foster customer loyalty, and drive revenue growth.

Read more: Check out the most effective follow-up email techniques you can use to increase your conversion and email open rate.

14. How Beardbrand established their earnings at $120,000 per month

Beardbrand is a grooming company that focuses on providing high-quality products for beard and facial hair care. They specialize in offering a range of grooming products, including beard oils, beard balms, beard washes, mustache waxes, and grooming tools.

The company achieved a monthly revenue of $120,000 by leveraging its unique branding. Here’s how their branding efforts contributed to their success.

Niche focus and embracing beard culture

Beardbrand found a unique niche within the grooming market and capitalized on it— beard care. By centering their brand around the celebration of beard culture, they positioned themselves as more than just a grooming product company. By doing this, the beardbrand team created a strong brand identity and connected with a dedicated audience on a deeper level.

Authenticity and storytelling

Beardbrand’s branding emphasized authenticity and storytelling. They shared the personal journey and experiences of their founder, Eric Bandholz, in building the brand and embracing the beard lifestyle. This storytelling approach resonated with customers, creating a sense of connection and trust.

Engaging content marketing and community building

Beardbrand heavily invested in content marketing, creating engaging, informative, and entertaining content about beard care, grooming, and lifestyle topics. This not only positioned them as a trusted authority but also drove customer engagement. Simultaneously, they actively built a community around their brand, encouraging user-generated content, feedback, and social media interaction.

The above tactics and activities resulted in a loyal base of customers and brand advocates, significantly contributing to their revenue growth. All these different branding efforts coupled with quality products and engaging marketing strategies, contributed to their huge monthly revenue.

15. How Frank Body achieved $20M in annual sales by investing in content marketing

Frank Body is an Australian-based skincare company that gained popularity for its range of coffee-based body and skincare products. The company focuses on creating natural and cruelty-free products designed to exfoliate, hydrate, and nourish the skin.

What’s interesting is that they achieved a whooping $20M in annual sales by making significant investments in content marketing. So, what exactly did they do?

Engaging and shareable content

Frank Body created content that was entertaining, relatable, and shareable. They developed a distinctive brand voice that resonated with their target audience, primarily millennials. Their strategy included blog posts, social media content, and videos that focused on promoting self-care, body positivity, and natural beauty. These activities played a significant role in attracting and retaining their target audience.

Educational and informative content

The company also used content marketing to educate and inform its audience about the benefits of its products and the importance of skincare. They provided valuable tips, tutorials, and guides on topics such as exfoliation, skincare routines, and ingredient benefits. This approach positioned them as experts in the skincare industry, building trust and credibility among their customers.

User-generated content and influencer partnerships

Encouraging user-generated content and partnering with influencers greatly enhanced the brand’s reach and credibility. By urging customers to share their experiences with the products and by collaborating with influencers, Frank Body was able to generate authentic engagement, social proof, and increased visibility among new audiences.

All in all, Frank Body’s content marketing efforts not only generated brand awareness but also built a loyal customer base that resonated with their values and product offerings.

Ecommerce case studies—key takeaways

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to growing a successful ecommerce business. As demonstrated in their respective case studies, the companies highlighted above achieved ecommerce success through various strategies.

No matter if the strategies included revamping of copy, personalizing customer messages, or focusing on brand building, experimentation played a major role for most of these brands.. Testing changes and tracking their results led most of these companies to find what worked for them—something you, too, can apply to your business.

And though experimentation may be daunting, consider how your failures can point your business in the direction of growth. Whether you make small tweaks or large adjustments, the room for error also means room for opportunity.

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Content Writer at Tidio. One of those lucky people who turned their hobby into a job. Krzysztof loves wordplay, so beating him in Scrabble is almost impossible.

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Ecommerce: 10 mini case studies of successful marketing for online shopping

Ecommerce was already a quickly growing segment, and then – boom – along comes a pandemic. COVID-19 with its shutdowns and calls for social distancing has further accelerated the growth of online shopping.

To help your company get its piece of the growing pie, we bring you examples from Dunkin’, an organic mattress company, BBQ grill retailer, 3D models platform, women’s clothing store, vegan blog, gourmet deli and marketplace, footwear brand, and female wellness product.

Ecommerce: 10 mini case studies of successful marketing for online shopping

This article was originally published in the MarketingSherpa email newsletter .

While ecommerce has been growing rapidly, it still only comprised a small percentage of overall retail sales. For example, in the U.S., on an adjusted basis, ecommerce accounted for 11.8% of all retail sales in the first quarter of 2020, according to the U.S. Census Bureau .

That was for Q1. Then in Q2, the number jumped to 16.1% – a 44.5% change from the same quarter a year ago. To put that number in perspective, Q2 2019 grew “only” 13.8% over Q2 2018.

What changed? The COVID-19 pandemic, of course. Even with ecommerce’s double-digit growth over the years, brick-and-mortar retail still had many advantages over ecommerce. Some products (like groceries) are hard to ship and easier and less expensive to buy in person. Brick-and-mortar retail has an experiential draw that ecommerce can’t match – from trying on a shirt to being wowed by an in-store (and Instagram-worthy) display. The ability to make a human connection and learn about a product or service.

Suddenly everything changed. That human connection became a detriment. And a no-touch version of goods and even services was preferable if not essential.

And that’s where we are in 2020 folks. A sad statement on human existence, yes. But as marketers, we must answer a practical question. How do we ensure our companies can continue to create value for customers in this changed world? Ecommerce can play a critical role. To help spark ideas for improving your company’s ecommerce efforts, here are specific examples from your peers in a wide range of industries.

Mini Case Study #1: Adding credibility generates a 46% increase in conversion for mattress company

A mid-sized furniture company selling organic latex mattresses engaged with MECLABS Institute to increase the overall number of mattress purchases (MECLABS is the parent organization of MarketingSherpa). It is one of only a few mattresses that is GreenGuard Gold certified.

The team conducted an experiment to determine which credibility approach would produce the highest rate of mattress purchases and ran an A/B split test.

The control landing page mentioned the certification, but it was de-emphasized.

Creative Sample #1: Control landing page for organic latex mattress

The treatment landing page added a section entitled “What is the GreenGuard Gold Seal?”

Creative Sample #2: Treatment landing page for organic latex mattress

The treatment landing page generated a 46% increase in conversion in the A/B test. The tangible value created by the additional copy helped the customer determine that the mattress was worth purchasing.

You can learn more about this experiment, and see other ecommerce experiments, in Optimizing Ecommerce Experiences: 25 valid ecommerce experiments to ideate your next A/B test from MarketingExperiments (MarketingSherpa’s sister publication).

Mini Case Study #2: Dunkin’ increases gift card sales 300% by quickly tapping into changing customer motivations

The way customers perceive your products and service can change over time. The COVID-19 pandemic is a great example. For most companies, if they just treated customers the same way they did before the pandemic, they would have overlooked customers’ changing motivations. And those changing motivations affect how potential customers perceive your offer.

Dunkin’ is an example of a company that moved swiftly to tap into new customer motivations. “As COVID-19 struck, Americans wanted to find ways to help and to show support for the frontline heroes. Dunkin’ wanted to give people a way to do so, even without being able to leave home,” said Justin Unger, Director, Strategic Partnerships, Dunkin'.

Created in just days, the DunkinCoffeeBreak.com ecommerce site gave customers a way to show appreciation by sending a virtual coffee break in the form of a Dunkin’ e-gift card. Dunkin’ donated $1 (up to $100,000) for every card purchased at this site to the Dunkin’ Joy in Childhood Foundation emergency funds, specifically for non-profits helping families affected by COVID-19.

“Since the initial launch, Dunkin’ has used the site for multiple moments that matter to people, such as Teacher Appreciation Week, National Nurses Week, and Mother’s Day,” Unger said.

The site is driving incremental digital gift card sales and has generated a 300% increase in year-over-year gift card sales for certain events.

“ I think ecommerce, especially in the gift card space, is a key [you can use to] unlock growth. We saw a tremendous lift in online gift card sales with the addition of DunkinCoffeeBreak.com without any cannibalization to our existing online gift card program. It allowed us to reach new guests and tap into the wealth of information and targeting in the digital world, which you just cannot do with plastic gift cards hanging on pegs ,” Unger said.

“Online and mobile shopping surged when social distancing was introduced…based on Blackhawk Network’s partners’ sales data, gift cards sales made directly from a restaurant’s or merchant’s website since mid-March are up 92% from last year,” said Brett Narlinger, Head of Global Commerce, Blackhawk Network , Dunkin’s gift card program partner.

Mini Case Study #3: Home décor company generates $734.40 in sales from “penny campaigns”

“Throughout my ecommerce career I have successfully implemented what I call ‘penny campaigns’ within numerous Google Ad accounts for a large number of different businesses,” said Patrick Connelly, co-founder, Stellar Villa .

Most businesses focus their ad spend on a select few products or services that account for the majority of the company’s revenue, he says. The idea with a penny campaign is to go deeper into your product set and offer very low bids for the ads.

“Penny campaigns can work with both text ads and Google Product Shopping ads, although I prefer Product ads,” Connelly said. Once you have the products added to a campaign, simply set a very low bid. While this can vary by industry, Connelly typically sets bids between five and twenty cents and uses broad match for a larger reach if targeting keywords.

For example, from May through July the wall art company ran a Shopping campaign with Product Listing Ads) for its “Nursery Wall Art” collection. The team set a maximum cost-per-click of $0.20 with a daily budget of $100. “We knew we wouldn't spend close to that, but I like to let Google know we're willing to pay for as many clicks at $0.20 or less as they can give us,” Connelly said.

Over the course of three months the ad produced 354 clicks at a cost of $60.18. The ad generated $743.40 in sales.

“The penny campaign strategy can be implemented on more platforms than just Google Ads. It also works great with Amazon Advertising,” Connelly said.

Mini Case Study #4: Vegan blog grows traffic to 50,000 monthly visits with more diverse SEO outreach strategy

Thrive Cuisine had more than 25,000 backlinks but was plateauing at about 30,000 monthly unique visits.

The team was building links and publishing content on the same schedule as before and wasn’t sure why they weren’t seeing more traffic and conversions.

George Pitchkhadze, CMO, Thrive Cuisine tried a new approach. Instead of focusing on getting more backlinks he decided the site need a bigger variety of backlinks. Pitchkhadze stopped outreach efforts that were targeting the same kind of website over and over again and spent two months creating a completely new link-building and outreach strategy. This time, the team specifically focused on websites in adjacent niches instead of the vegan blog’s own niche. They started the outreach effort in May after spending two months creating more diverse content to link back to.

The new out outreach targeting more diverse websites increased the number of referring domains by more than 50%. This resulted in traffic going from about 30,000 to more than 50,000 monthly visits from unique visitors and increased “traffic value” by more than $10,000.

“If you’re looking to get ecommerce traffic, focus on backlink variety and quality; not only quantity. This will massively improve your results. Where possible, create new content on your own website to really showcase your own expertise across diverse subjects,” Pitchkhadze said.

Mini Case Study #5: Footwear store increases conversion 21.5% with clearer communication on website

KURU Footwear places a high emphasis on customer service and ease of experience by offering free shipping, free exchanges, and free returns. While this messaging did exist on the footwear brand’s website in various places, the team launched a test exploring four options that inserted those value messages higher in the customer experience.

Creative Sample #3: Control homepage for footwear brand

The top-performing treatment had a black bar with simple white text at the top of nearly all pages outside of the checkout funnel. It increased conversion 21.5%.

Creative Sample #4: Top-performing treatment for footwear website

Other treatments that included the customer service message but added in a message to reassure customers that Kuru was open and operating during COVID-19 did not perform as well. “We found simplicity performed best,” said Kelly Stanze, Manager, Marketing & Communications, Kuru.

Creative Sample #5: Lower-performing treatment for footwear website

“Making sure potential new customers know just how much we prioritize customer satisfaction can be difficult. While the proof is in the shoes, we're constantly seeking ways to elevate just how passionate about our customers we are as a company. This was just one step in that never-ending effort,” Stanze said.

Mini Case Study #6: Facebook Live show quadruples online orders for gourmet deli and marketplace

Big Bottom Market is a gourmet deli and marketplace in the heart of Sonoma Wine Country. In addition to its retail presence, the team also manages an Etsy Shop where they sell Big Bottom Market-branded products and the work of local artisans.

“We've been in the e-commerce game since 2016 when we were designated one of Oprah's Favorite Things and had to use the Amazon platform for national sales,” said Michael Volpatt, owner, Big Bottom Market. “From orders and shipping to returns and everything in between, Amazon was a great partner at the time. That changed when our sales volume slowed down so we crunched the numbers and realized that Etsy would be a better partner as we ramped up our growing product line with items that we created or partnered with someone to create for us…My point in this is that being flexible at all points in your e-commerce journey is important.”

Volpatt would be forced to be flexible once again. On March 18 th , the county of Sonoma locked down due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the in-person retail market closed. All of a sudden, ecommerce became a much more important component of Big Bottom Market’s sales

“As a chef and cookbook author, I decided to continue engaging with our customers and launched a Facebook Live cooking show called Cooking In Place,” Volpatt said.

Volpatt cooked and showcased local wines for fans along with other products that the market sells, encouraging viewers to buy them online.

In addition, after each show he posted the video replay across all of its social media channels and shared recipes and details about the food he cooked and wine he tasted on the show.” I would broadcast on Facebook Live and save the video feed. Then I would repost a link to the video on my personal page, on Instagram TV, and then also on YouTube,” he said.

Creative Sample #6: Facebook Live cooking show from gourmet deli and marketplace

In addition to customer engagement and increasing social media followers, the goal was to drive ecommerce sales as a way to augment lost revenue from in-store foot traffic.

“We used to see three to five orders per month in our Etsy shop. In the first week of doing the show we saw three to five per week and that increased to five to ten orders per week. To some, those numbers may seem low, but for a small business located in a tourist town, these numbers were great. Our sales ended up paying for our monthly fixed expenses, which was very helpful for a business that relies on foot traffic,” Volpatt said.

Mini Case Study #7: Retail company increases revenue 311% with website redesign

The Barbecues Galore website had a low conversion rate due to technical, usability and value communication issues. For example, when a product was added in different product categories the URL slug of the product itself would change. “This presented us with issues we needed to address immediately, as a product that constantly changes in URL is not SEO friendly and would present with unwanted 301 redirects and in some cases 404s,” said Andres Aguero, Senior SEO Specialist, Barbecues Galore.

The new site fixed those technical issues, and also did a better job of communicating value to the customer. For example, the product listing page on the old website had very few pictures and did not prominently feature reviews.

Creative sample #7: Previous product listing page on retailer’s original website

“We ended up figuring out that when people are making a large purchase online they want to feel safe and secure that their money is being well spent,” Aguero said.

The team invested in adding additional photos to the product listing and reached out to previous customers from both the online and brick-and-mortar locations to request a product review.

Creative sample #8: Product listing page on retailer’s new website

Due to unforeseen circumstances, the team had to push the live date of the website to April 2020. “This was a big risk at the time as we were at the peak of COVID-19 and all of our brick-and-mortar locations had been closed. Our only source of income at that time was our online revenue,” Aguero said.

The redesign paid off. Revenue from April to August 2020 increased 311% compared to the same time frame in the previous year and revenue from organic traffic increased 172%. (Much of that increase likely has to do with the site improvements, however this reporter questions if increased demand for backyard products due to COVID-19 lockdowns may have also played a role in the revenue increase.)

“My advice for other marketers would be to focus on your website’s existing traffic first before you make any other investments. Our PPC specialist was spending a crazy amount of money on a monthly basis only to see low conversion rates. If your conversion rate is low then try to figure out why. Take a look at your competitors and see what they are doing. After you’ve done that, then you can start making investments into PPC or SEO,” Aguero advised.

Mini Case Study #8: 3D models platform increases clickthrough 12% with A/B testing

Sketchfab operate a 3D content marketplace where people can buy and sell 3D models. It features some of these designs on its landing pages. The team decided to test the effect of different background designs for the header block, which contains a search bar and other navigation menus.

The background of the landing pages consisted of colorful, contrasted 3D models of animals and characters.

Creative Sample #9: Control landing page for 3D content models platform

The team tested less prominent backgrounds to provide more emphasis to the search bar and rest of the page’s user interface. Here is the highest-performing treatment, which produced a 5.3% increase in page engagement and 12.4% increase in clickthrough rates when compared to the original version.

Creative Sample #10: Treatment landing page for 3D content models platform

“Backgrounds [with] a low contrast image that blends with the rest of the page tend to perform much better than vivid, more contrasted ones. In our case, rather than wowing customers with a spectacular image or video, having a more modest graphic allowed them to take action and flow to other internal pages,” said Guillermo Sainz, Digital Marketing, Sketchfab.

Mini Case Study #9: Automating organic Pinterest postings generates $56,000 per month for women’s clothing store

This next example may not work for every company, but it was successful for a niche brand with a very visual product.

“We used to post manually on Pinterest every now and then and didn't attract any customers/visitors to our ecommerce portal. A few months ago, we installed a Shopify plugin to automatically push product images to Pinterest,” said Akram Tariq Khan, CTO, YourLibaas .

Creative Sample #11: Automated Pinterest post from women’s clothing store

“The results were unexpected,” Khan said.

The women’s clothing store now has about 930,000 monthly Pinterest viewers with 26,000 followers and average monthly sales directly attributable to Pinterest of $56,000 within the last quarter without spending a penny on Pinterest.

YourLibaas is based in India and offers international shipping. Most of the Pinterest customers are located internationally, primarily within the US, UK and Canada with a sizeable number in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

“The majority of our international orders are customers who discovered our brand through Pinterest. We have a significant presence on Instagram and Facebook too, but the user base at these platforms is primarily located domestically within India,” Khan said.

Mini Case Study #10: Female wellness product overcomes ad ban with SEO-focused content creation and attracts 9,248 organic visitors in latest month

As digital advertising platforms work to improve their image by banning industries and products deemed harmful, some less nefarious brands are getting caught as well.

For example, Chiavaye sells an all-natural, vegan personal moisturizer. Kaylyn Easton started the company because she has endometriosis.

The company was making approximately $14,000 per month in revenue by promoting the product with paid ads. However, about two years ago its ad account was shut down for “adult content.”

“Paid ads was a strategy that worked well for us until it didn’t. Meaning, the moment we got shut down, we lost more than 90% of our monthly revenue,” said Kaylyn Easton, CEO & Founder, Chiavaye.

At the time, organic traffic from Google was only about 20 visitors per month, and 98% of its was branded searches like “Chiavaye lube.”

The company decided to pursue a strategy of SEO-focused content creation. “We wanted to implement a strategy that would build our brand long-term so that after we turn off the investment, it could still bring in value. If we were to stop writing SEO articles today, we’d still get the benefits from what we’ve done for years to come. Versus, if we turn off a paid ads strategy, we immediately see a huge negative impact,” Easton said.

The primary focus of the content is not the promotion of the product, but instead helping the target audience overcome key pain points.

“We've been creating four SEO-focused pieces of content per month targeting endometriosis-related queries. Things like ‘endometriosis diet grocery list.’ We found that women with endo are craving any type of information to help them. And, if the info is good, they'll trust that person – and even buy their products,” said Joey Randazzo, Founder and CEO, Portland SEO Growth .

After 18 months of creating four pieces of content per month, the site went from about 20 visitors per month to, in the most recent month, 9,248 organic visitors.

Every piece of content has two CTAs (calls to action). The first is to buy the product. The second CTA is for a free e-book, which is generating 250 downloads per month – building the email list.

Creative Sample #12: Email signup form for e-book from female wellness product company

“We discovered that [competitors] have salesy email campaigns – every other email is a 30% off coupon. [Chiavaye's] is designed around adding value more than anything,” Randazzo said.

The team discovered the top burning questions the target audience is asking around endometriosis, like “is dairy okay to eat with endo?” Easton answers these questions in text and video in a clear, straightforward way. The email body is succinct in answering the question linking to articles on the company’s website for more information.

“Figure out who your target audience is and then create content that adds value to them and their lives. We’ve discovered that 95% of the content we create should be adding value to the reader. The final 5% should pitch us as a solution. It builds trust and entices them to opt in for our free e-book, which consequently builds a super valuable email list for us,” Easton said.

Related resources

Research-based Ecommerce Swipe File

Ecommerce Marketing Research: To be truly successful, you must step out of the ecommerce bubble

Ecommerce Research Chart: What makes customers more likely to buy online?

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The best ecommerce case studies (63+ success examples).

The Best ecommerce Case Studies and Business Success Stories

1. how mellow made $200,000+ in preorder sales in less than a month.

Mellow is a company that makes a magical kitchen robot that syncs with your smartphone to cook for you at your convenience. The founder, Ze Pinto Ferreira was interning at Braun when he realized everything he knew (mechanical engineering, food, product design) could intersect to create impactful work.

He knew the sous-vide he wanted to create should change home cooking dramatically, but he also knew he couldn’t do it alone.

That’s when he set off to find a co-founder, Catarina who was working as a freelance designer.

He managed to convince her to use her talents on a potentially groundbreaking company and the two of them built Mellow together.

What They Did To Succeed

Using Trycelery.com as their pre-order platform, Mellow was launched to great success. They collected a total of $64,000 in pre-orders in ONLY 3 days and eventually made $200,000+ in less than a month.

Key Takeaway

In the case study, Ferreira mentioned how he marketed Mellow by reaching out directly to 100+ reporters. Given the background of both Ferreira and Catarina, though, PR seemed to be out of their reach.

This is where the classic Paul Graham business strategy comes into play. To get your startup off the ground, you have to do things that don’t scale. Don’t know how to do PR? Teach yourself, reach out to reporters, and get your product or service in publications like TechCrunch and TheNextWeb.

That's exactly what the founders of Mellow did, a process that earned them six figures within the first month of launching.

2. SumoJerky - The Results Of The 24-Hour Business Challenge

Noah Kagan is known for starting multiple companies and growing all of them to 7- and 8-figures in revenue (including the budgeting startup Mint.com). As part of a 24-Hour Business challenge to prove to anyone that they can start a business today, Noah asked his followers which business he should start so he could show he would make $1,000 a day.

The end result?

A beef jerky subscription company that made more than $1,000 in 24 hours.

What He Did To Succeed

Noah made $3,030 in total revenue in 24 hours.

Made a basic budget so he could work backwards to find out how much he needed to sell to make $1000.
Created a customer avatar so he knew who he should target
Started reaching out to people who he thought fit the customer avatar

Not only did he complete the challenge, but he also exceeded it (not after downing 4 cups of coffee though.)

Create a customer avatar to know who your target audience is. It’s astounding how many businesses do not know who their ideal customer is. Find out who is already buying your product or service and then reach out to more people like them. This is at the core of Noah's business process and what makes him such a notable success story.

3. How Two Friends Turned Up The Heat And Sold $170K Worth Of Spicy Honey in 10 Months

Honey? Yes!

Chilli peppers? Yes!

Together? Um.. what?

If you’re confused, don’t be. Spicy honey is the brainchild of MixedMade, a company that makes delicious products by mixing unexpected ingredients together.

Their first ever product – Bees Knees Spicy Honey – combines raw honey with a special blend of chilli peppers to create a balance of sweet mellowness and spicy intensity.

(Yum… Now I want some for myself!)

Their first $1,000 came from emailing their personal contacts and posting to their own personal Facebook pages.

Then, they made a list of potential press targets and aggressively pursued them.

This worked to great success.

A few modest mentions on smaller sites like Huckberry later grew into features on Uncrate, The Kitchn, CNBC, the Today Show, Bon Appetite, Esquire and Vanity Fair.

End result?

The press coverage exploded their business, making them the ultimate success story.

Everyone loves being featured on national media, but the press begins from the smaller guys.

In Trust Me, I’m Lying, media genius Ryan Holiday discusses the concept of “trading up the chain”, where larger publications often take content from smaller publications.

Start by getting yourself featured on smaller blogs and publications, and slowly “trade up the chain” to bigger features on national media. The return on investment of this particular marketing strategy is tenfold.

4. How Opena Case Hit 189% Of Their $15,000 Kickstarter Target And Built A Million Dollar Business

Pretty iPhone cases are aplenty, but truly useful and practical iPhone cases..?

That’s rare.

Meet Opena. Opena is an iPhone case with a slide-out bottle opener.

If you’ve ever fumbled at a party looking for a bottle opener, or wondered if your teeth were strong enough to crack that bottle of Heineken open…

Opena is the solution.

Opena launched on Kickstarter in June 2011 and successfully raised $28,303 (surpassing their initial $15,000 target.)

How did they do it?

They built a tribe of early adopters before they even launched the campaign. When they launched the campaign, they rewarded the early backers with early bird rewards, who then gleefully spread the word for them.

Within half an hour of going live, the early bird backers were all sold out.

The takeaway I want to highlight here has nothing to do with Opena’s excellent customer acquisition tactics. It does, however, have to do with the founder Chris Peters.

Just take a look at his bio:

Studied Industrial Design right out of high school.
Spent 4 years working at a large firm that specialized in medical machines. He was involved in industrial design work, prototyping and graphic interfaces.
Then worked at various design consultancies.
Took a year off to wakeboard.
Worked for a much smaller design consultancy, which helped him get a sense of what it’s like to run a small business.
Sold software for a year to learn how to do sales.
Ran his own design consultancy for 3 years.

This means that he had at least a decade of experience before even founding the company. This also means that he had deep expertise – both to identify a problem worth solving and developing a solution to fix the problem.

The biggest business problem we see is that most people make the jump to entrepreneurship without understanding that many successful entrepreneurs had built up deep domain expertise in their fields before starting a company. This makes it difficult to identify your strengths and weaknesses as an entrepreneur, which is an essential ability to have when launching a business.

5. #TheGreatBuild Project

Richard Lazazzera was part of Shopify ’s Growth Team, where he helped the platform grow from 60,000 to 200,000 merchants. A Better Lemonade Stand is his blog, where he shares comprehensive guides on how to build and grow eCommerce businesses.

#TheGreatBuild was a project he undertook to inspire others to build their own eCommerce sites. He built an eCommerce company – Finch Goods Co. – and detailed the entire journey on #TheGreatBuild (14 chapters long!)

Although Richard withheld his sales reports (so we don’t know how much he actually made), he did write a case study with an incredibly detailed step-by-step guide on how to start, brand and build your own eCommerce store.

Richard considers these 6 elements crucial to your business strategy for your eCommerce store — and he addressed it by introducing several apps:

Up-Selling at Checkout
Email Capture/Newsletter Signup
Abandon Cart Emails
Referrals ( Download ReferralCandy for your Shopify store here .)
Exit Intent Offer
Retargeting

The 6 elements that Richard mentioned in his post are fantastic. There are usually some holes that eCommerce entrepreneurs miss out in their rush to build their store and sell quickly, which Richard has kindly pointed out here.

Fix those areas and you should see your sales soar.

BONUS: How to Setup a Referral Program For Your Shopify Store

6 . Social Media Marketing: How A Small E-Commerce Site Attracted 293,000 Facebook Fans

Diamond Candles is a company that offers scented, soy-based candles that have a ring at the bottom. This has resulted in their customers spreading word-of-mouth about them due to the excitement of potentially winning the prize.

Instead of purchasing ads online to drive sales to their business, their predominant marketing strategy has been to utilize referrals and social media.

The key strategy behind their success has been user-generated content by its customer base.

Without spending a single cent on ads, these photos grew the company’s Facebook Fan Page to 469,661 fans while also boosting their product page conversion rate by 13%.

Knowing that more customer-contributed photos essentially made them more successful, they then created an environment of encouraging their customers to share more photos.

Here’s what they did:

A call-to-action found on the candle urging customers to take a photo with the ring and share it on social media, exposing their brand to even more potential customers (for free)
Giveaways that encourage customers to create and share images for a chance to win free products, developing customer loyalty
Share all the photos gathered on social media, creating an impression that it is normal to share Diamond Candle-related photos

Your customers are your greatest ambassadors. Find a way to incentivize them to spread word-of-mouth for you (or use ReferralCandy ). This not only increases your reach to potential customers but also improves customer loyalty.

7 . How To Create a $4,000 Per Month Muse In 5 Days

It’s Noah again! (Told you he’s famous.)

In this case study, Noah retells how he helped Daniel Bliss, a postal worker, turn his hobby into a real eCommerce business making $4,000 a month. The purpose? Help Daniel quit his day-job.

Daniel started his business by solving his own problem — neck pain while belaying.

Prior to meeting Noah, Daniel had already sourced a manufacturer and set up his own website to sell his shades. He was also off to a good start – having sold 12 pairs of shades to people in his climbing group.

But here’s the best part:

After meeting Noah, he HIT his goal.

Noah taught him the same thing he did for his SumoJerky business (detailed above):

Reverse-engineer the number of sales you need
Try different tactics to make it work

The purpose of this was to help Daniel figure out what marketing tactics work… and double down on them. In just 5 days, Daniel and Noah tried at least 10+ tactics and found his most successful channel.

The result:

Daniel received a message from a large online site, who placed an order of $4,200!

This marketing case study is less about the specific marketing strategy so much as it's about the entire business process. You will never know what will work for your business. Reverse-engineer the number of sales you need, try different tactics, review them and double down on those that worked for you.

8. How We Built an Ecommerce Business from Scratch and Generated $922.16 in Revenue in 3 Days

Do you need a long time to build an eCommerce business?

Some people believe so. After all, there are a lot of logistics to handle – domain, hosting, website content, pricing, supplier sourcing, launching, branding...

...not to mention the effort of reaching your potential customers with content marketing (and then analyzing it all on Google Analytics).

But WHAT IF you challenged yourself to set something up in 3 days?

Could it be done?

Apparently so.

Richard Lazazzera took up the challenge and proceeded to do everything (from determining what to sell to actually making sales)… in only 3 days.

In total, Richard made $922.16 in total revenue from this little experiment.

He went down every single possible marketing channel one-by-one, tried it and see what results it delivered. In fact, in only 3 days, he tested channels like Reddit, Product Hunt, personal outreach, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter.

How’s that for fast?

Building an eCommerce store (in fact, any business) is a culmination of multiple small decisions. Make those decisions fast and push forward. You will never discover the results through thinking, only by testing.

9. How To Build A Menswear Brand - An Interview With Owen & Fred

Owen & Fred was a company founded by Mike Arnot after he realised that high-quality yet affordable American-made men’s accessories were not available in the market.

Make your own.

Mike then went on to create an e-commerce business that curates great products and help others like him do the same.

Repeat orders make up 35% of Owen & Fred’s revenue. In their industry, that’s incredible. Almost unbelievable.

That’s because of Owen & Fred values and prizes their customers. They made their products, their marketing campaigns and the entire customer experience amazing.

They even received a compliment from one of their customers: “never purchased from a company that actually delivered a product that amazing.”

Even if you’re an e-commerce store that does drop-shipping or product curation, you still have to ensure that your product(s) is amazing.

An amazing product makes marketing easier (because even great marketing can’t save bad products).

10. E-commerce: Moving beyond shopping cart abandonment nets 65% more checkout conversions

If you thought there were only several kinds of envelopes available, you would be wrong.

(Though I wouldn’t fault you, because I didn’t know myself either.)

Envelopes.com is an eCommerce business that sells almost any type of envelope you can imagine. White, brown, and green are common sights at this online marketplace specifically created for selling envelopes.

Remember what Richard Lazazzera said above in his marketing foundations?

One of them was Abandonment Cart Emails.

Envelopes.com discovered that a significant number of their website visitors visit multiple times before buying. They decided that these groups of visitors were the opportunity to help increase their online sales.

To do this, they sent emails to encourage these visitors to return, which reduced their abandonment rate and improved their conversions.

There are many touchpoints your customers will have with your business. Optimize these touchpoints and improve your sales.

11. How a Small Menswear Brand Utilized Word-of-Mouth to Get Over $420,000 On Kickstarter

Think space tech is cool?

How about something cooler? How about… integrating your clothes with space tech?

Fascinated now..?

That’s what Ministry of Supply did. Ministry of Supply is a menswear apparel brand that infuses fashion with space tech.

Their first-ever product, the Apollo features Phase-Changing Materials adapted from NASA spacesuits that help regulate your body temperature.

Trading up the chain.

Instead of directly approaching massive tech blogs like TechCrunch, Ministry of Supply started small. They pitched 150+ product-relevant blogs with customized emails, and got themselves featured, raising $30,000 in 5 days for their Kickstarter campaign.

Of course, as the above example of MixedMade shows, trading up the chain means bigger publications will follow the trail of smaller publications.

And naturally… that happened for MoS.

TechCrunch and Forbes later featured them — and that skyrocketed their Kickstarter funding to $400,000.

Find a unique angle to your product that everyone can easily remember — which will encourage your customers to “remark” about your product to their friends.

Their first product, Apollo was remarkable because it was clothes infused with space tech.

Their second product, a pressure-mapping sock, was eventually re-positioned to be “coffee socks” because everyone remembered they used coffee beans to remove the odours in the socks.

Make it easy to share, and people will.

12. How I Built an Online T-Shirt Business and Made $1,248.90 in 3 Weeks

Shopify’s core value on their blog is “do something, tell people.” (And of course, promote their own platform.)

That’s why it’s in their interest to show how easy it is to set up an eCommerce store in minutes and get sales in as little as 3 days (as seen in example #8.) But it’s also to our delight that we get to see firsthand how to build something from scratch.

(By the way, it's also as easy to set up ReferralCandy for your Shopify store .)

This time around, Shopify staff Tucker Schreiber took on the challenge of building a T-shirt business in a month.

In less than a month, ThinkPup, the store they set up generated $1,248.90 in revenue. Not fantastic, but a great start for a new store.

Tucker tried a variety of online marketing channels to acquire customers and found that he got the most sales from Reddit and Instagram.

This shows that you don’t have to overthink your marketing channels. Sometimes posting to free places like Reddit (where people already gather) will help you get sales.

Always test new marketing channels for your product. While you may think that [insert your niche’s favourite channel] is the way to go because that’s how people have done it, you will actually never know which channel will be profitable for you.

13. How An Ex-Con Turned His Life Around And Built an $80k per Month Ecommerce Business

As Robert himself mentions in this case study, the odds seemed stacked against him.

He was an ex-felon, he didn’t have a lot of experience in sales and marketing and he wasn’t in a great financial position.

However, something about being an ex-felon drove him to want to be different and stand out. And that’s how he eventually created National Parks Depot, an eCommerce business that sells outdoor adventure gears and apparels.

Facebook Ads.

Starting with a small ad budget of $60, he got a return of nearly $1,000 in sales. He then doubled the ad spend and got back double his ROI. He eventually scaled up his ad spend and hit $80,000 in sales.

Don’t be afraid to spend money to promote your products. Even without much money, Robert was willing to invest to test if Facebook Ads would work for his business.

Invest money to get more sales, so test to see if paid advertising can work for your business.

14. How I Imported Gaming Glasses With Alibaba and Made $2,416.51 In 5 Weeks

This is the another Shopify challenge Shopify employees took on. In Example #8, we saw how they started a matcha green tea company from scratch in ONLY 3 days. In Example #13, we saw how they began selling t-shirts online in LESS than a month.

This time around, another Shopify employee Corey Ferreira took on the challenge and decided to set up an online eCommerce store selling blue-light blocking glasses for gamers.

The result this time?

$2,416.51 in 5 weeks.

Similar to the rest of the guys who took up challenges at Shopify, he ran through multiple marketing channels pretty quickly.

The one that generated the most sales for him was setting up affiliate commissions and getting influencers to help promote his product.

( Pro-Tip: Supercharge your influencer marketing, and get more word-of-mouth sales with ReferralCandy .)

Are there people who command massive audiences in your niche? Reach out to them and propose an affiliate deal, and get them to promote your product to their audience.

15. How One Ecommerce Entrepreneur Explored New Sales Channels – And Took Revenues From $8K to $96K per Month

Eating healthily is kind of a chore.

We all know we need to eat healthier, sleep more and work out, but we do none of that. Because we’re too busy.

Enter Raw Generation.

Raw Generation is a company that makes drinking raw, unpasteurized juice from fresh fruits and vegetables more convenient.

Deal sites.

After initially promoting on social media and getting no traction, Jessica, the founder was introduced to Lifebooker, a deal site.

After promoting on Lifebooker, they hit a home run.

Majority of Raw Generation’s sales come from deal sites like Groupon, Gilt and Rue La La. (They are no longer using Gilt or Rue La La.)

Once you discover a marketing channel that is working for you, don’t go seeking new marketing channels. Double down on it and make it work for you over and over again.

16. 80/20 Validation: The Cheap And Fast Way To Prove A Business

[caption id="attachment_22471" align="aligncenter" width="600"]

Image: Kettle and Fire [/caption]

What the bleep is bone broth? Well, It is a broth simmered from bones -- and it has been touted as a superfood by the paleo community.

It’s not easily accessible online.

Well, at least until Kettle & Fire came onto the scene.

Kettle & Fire became the first-ever company to make a unique shelf-stable beef bone broth. This particular bone broth need not be frozen until it is opened.

By making sure the product was something people wanted.

Yes, bone broth was growing in popularity.

But the bigger entrepreneur question is not about popularity, but “will anyone put money down for this product?”

Justin and Nick made sure of that by throwing up a landing page and driving Bing traffic to it (classic Four Hour Work Week-style.) The end result? A simple experiment like this netted them $500 in sales, which confirmed their entire business model.

Never assume your product is something the market will want. Always test to find out (be it through messaging people, sending paid traffic etc.)

Bonus #1: ReferralCandy Case Studies

We (ReferralCandy) have been accumulating case studies from eCommerce entrepreneurs from multiple industries to show you how they have succeeded.

Here’s the list of case studies we’ve done for you:

Ecommerce Interviews
Powder City
BlissLights
Magical Butter
1950 Collective

Bonus #2: BigCommerce Case Studies

Our aim here in this blog post is to create the most comprehensive resource you can refer to when you want to be inspired or simply to understand how successful eCommerce entrepreneurs think.

Caveat: These case studies mostly include promoting BigCommerce’s services… but look past that and you’ll discover gems.

BombTech Golf
Spearmint LOVE
Exxel Outdoors
Bohemian Traders
Silk Road Teas
Bulk Apothecary
The Pink Lily Boutique
Di Bruno Bros
Sportbike Track Gear
Twirly Girl
US Patriot Tactical
Con Olio Oils & Vinegars
Raven and Lily
LaQuan Smith
Flash Tattoos
Pappy & Company

Bonus #3: Reddit Case Studies

Reddit is an under-utilized resource for learning about successful eCommerce case studies.

In fact, hidden in the subreddit r/entrepreneur are countless “unknown” yet successful entrepreneurs who are more than willing to share their wins and lessons with a larger audience. Here are some of the most popular posts on Reddit that detailed step-by-step of how they succeeded:

The Inner Workings Of A Subscription Box Company. From A 4K Site Purchase On Reddit to Close To $100,000 In Revenue In Less than 6 months. How We Did It, And What’s Next!
I created DicksByMail.com, went viral, and sold the company before even shipping out my second round of orders. AMA
How I literally started an Amazon business in about 1 month for about $1K
516 days ago at 20 years old I quit my job, dropped out of school, and founded an online hippie shop. This is how it turned out.
Beardbrand's guide to building a brand

As previously said, we aim to make this list the most comprehensive eCommerce case studies list found on the Internet.

That being said…

Did we miss out on any? Which case study do you think we should include?

Let us know in the comments!

P.S. If you enjoyed reading this, subscribe to our newsletter where we share our latest articles and helpful resources .

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Si Quan is ReferralCandy's Content Marketing Manager. He is also the co-founder of BreakDance Decoded , an online breakdance training company. He loves standup comedy, and has a dream to visit at least 100 countries in his lifetime.

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19 Ecommerce Case Studies You Need To Steal From

You’ve heard it before - always be testing.

But if you’re running an eCommerce business then the tasks of analyzing your site data and identifying leaks in the funnel usually get pushed to the bottom of your to-do list. Let's face it, you’ve got 97 other things you SHOULD be doing today.

So with that in mind, we've pulled together the following 19 real-world eCommerce lessons to help you cut straight to the chase in implementing some simple solutions to increase your online sales.

The ultimate growth marketing playbook

The exact 41 strategies we used to grow from 4-figure to 6-figure traffic in one year.

Send me the guide

In a hurry? Here are some eCommerce studies you need to steal from:

How to improve Conversion: Envelopes.com achieve 40%
How to improve Communication: Budapester increased mobile conversion by 29%
Make small changes: Edible Arrangements increases same-day sales by 8%
Make product benefits clear: Amerisleep increased checkouts by 13.9%
Reduce website friction: Company Folders increase conversion by 68%
Try cross selling products: Furniture retailer increased its AOV by 4.6% in 41 days
Reduce clutter and distractions: Taloon.com ditched social buttons
Use influencers to reach customers: Gwynnie Bee saw 5.85% CTR from Youtube influencer
Reduce risk of purchase: Express Watches provides authenticity stamp
Use events to drive sales: eCommerce companies saw a 27% spike during football world cup
Remove distractions: Underwater Audio bump sales by 41%
Get customers to take the next step: Kettlebell Kings’s takes advantage of user generated content to drive sales
Use comparison data: Paperstone took out their competition with data
Test and measure results: MVMT generated $90M in revenue in five years
Find alternate channels: ECCO Shoes decreased customer acquisition costs by 14%
Move past the product: Away generated $125M by standing out
Drive inbound through content marketing: Bavarian Clockworks reached $1m in sales
Build loyal engaged followers: Frank Body hit $20M in annual sales
Be relevant to your customers: Society Socks improved survey response rate by 200%

Save this guide: 19 eCommerce case studies

Learn from these 19 eCommerce case studies to see what problems they identified and how they implemented simple solutions to increase sales.

Send me the guide

[eCommerce case study #1] How to improve Conversion: Envelopes.com achieve 40%

A common eCommerce problem is prospects exiting the page before completing their order. As consumers, we've all done it before. So the team at Envelopes.com wanted to see if they could “rekindle the flame” and land some sales from hot leads using target followups. These are visitors who created an account and put an item in their shopping cart, so we can see some real intent to purchase at some stage down the track.

The Envelopes.com team were confident that sending targeted follow-up emails generally resulted in sales but weren’t sure of the best timeframe to send them. So they tested out email sends at two alternate time lapses post cart abandonment; the first group sent the following morning at 11 a.m. and the second group 48 hours post cart abandonment.

The emails sent at 11 a.m. the following day delivered:

an open rate of 38.63%
a click-through rate of 19.54% and
a conversion rate to a sale of 27.66%

The emails sent after 48 hours delivered:

an open rate of 38.01%
a click-through rate of 24.71% and
a conversion rate of 40.00%

Although sending these emails on the following day post cart abandonment had a slightly higher open rate, the most important figure, conversion to sale was significantly lower.

Take home message

Send a follow-up email to people who abandon their carts, if you’re not already doing it. Though Envelopes.com found that 48hrs later was the best performing time, a different cadence and time lag may work better with your customer base, so test out multiple alternatives. If you're looking for some assistance on the creative messaging front, we have included the exact email creative used by Envelopes.com here:

(Envelopes.com Reminder Email 1)

(Envelopes.com Reminder Email 2)

(Envelopes.com Reminder Email 3)

[eCommerce case study #2] How to improve Communication: Budapester increased mobile conversion by 29%

As anyone in the eCommerce realm can attest to, it can be pretty disheartening when a major influx in traffic doesn’t lead to an equally major spike in sales.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened to German luxury fashion retailer Budapester a few years back.

Astoundingly, the brand’s website had been seeing hundreds of thousands of visitors each month—but its conversion rates were absolutely abysmal. The problem was even worse on mobile, where Budapester’s conversion rate was less than half that of its desktop alternative.

Upon realizing something needed to be done, the company’s first order of business was to communicate its unique selling propositions and other offers and policies more clearly to its visitors. This meant displaying information regarding free delivery, shipping options , and product availability prominently within its individual product pages:

(Budapester website | Source )

Along with this, Budapester also tweaked its site’s header—specifically, decreasing the logo’s size, and adding the above-mentioned info at the very top of the page. Again, this made it much easier for visitors to learn about these policies and offers right away.

Finally, the team also tweaked the appearance of its shopping cart page. From this...

Ecommerce case study: Budapester shopping cart - Before

( Source | Budapester shopping cart – Before)

Ecommerce case study: Budapester shopping cart - After

( Source | Budapester shopping cart - After)

Once more, the above information is now prominently displayed to the consumer—this time in two ways. In addition to the change to the header, the website now displays the company’s offer for free shipping in a green font that stands out at the bottom of the screen.

The end result of Budapester’s efforts, as Growcode explains :

“Its overall conversion rate increased by 12.5%, with its mobile conversion rate going up by nearly 30%. All in all, this equated to an additional 120,000€.”

There are three main lessons to take away, here:

Firstly, it’s essential that you communicate your value to your potential customers in a clear and concise manner. If you offer something of value—say, free shipping on orders over $100—but you don’t tell your visitors about it...how are they supposed to know?

On the other side of this, you want to avoid including redundant or unnecessary information anywhere on your eCommerce website. Not only might this be distracting to your visitors, but it also takes up physical space on your site that could have been put to better use.

Finally, it’s worth pointing out that optimizing your site might not mean you need to do a complete overhaul. As was the case with Budapester, a few tiny, seemingly insignificant tweaks can be all your site needs to start generating a massive amount of conversions.

[eCommerce case study#3] Make small changes: Edible Arrangements increases same-day sales by 8%

Edible Arrangements had a fairly typical marketing challenge . They offer customers a same-day delivery option (and have done so for years) but people weren’t taking advantage of the offer because they didn’t know about it.

To educate customers about this option they significantly increased visibility with a large banner in an extremely prominent position on the homepage, just below the navigation bar. This created urgency around the offer by featuring a countdown timer to the deadline for same day delivery. It was impossible to miss or misunderstand.

Edible arrangements ecommerce case study

(Edible Arrangements website)

The result of this simple countdown feature? An increase in same-day sales by 8% !

You don’t need a new product to promote something. People might not know about a product or service you already have in play, so by increasing visibility to your existing audience, you may be able to snap up some quick wins. As a side note on this particular example, creating some urgency is always a good sales strategy. Encourage your audience to act now, instead of later (or never).

[eCommerce case study #4] Make product benefits clear: Amerisleep increased checkouts by 13.9%

Online mattress retailer Amerisleep had a problem that was quite similar to Budapester’s:

The company was seeing a ton of traffic on its website, but its conversion rates were nowhere near where the team would have liked them to be.

However, with the help of Growth Rock , Amerisleep decided to take a different approach to improving its website:

Rather than adding or deleting certain information, the team decided to focus on improving the messaging of the site’s copy—in a few ways.

First, the team dug deeper into the true benefits their products provide their customers. In Amerisleep’s case, this meant going beyond promising “a good night’s sleep,” and instead focusing on how getting a good night’s sleep every night can be absolutely life-changing.

(What would you do with more energy and less pain? | Source )

Secondly, the team aimed to reduce hesitation among its visitors by addressing the importance of immediate action. Rather than discussing the above benefits in a more hypothetical manner, the site’s copy was adjusted to address the idea that every night spent tossing and turning is another night visitors will never get back.

Lastly, the team tweaked some rather ambiguous copy comparing Amerisleep’s products to its competitors’ and made it more clear.

Originally, the website had made claims such as “No mattress is more carefully engineered.” The problem, here, is that this could be interpreted as “No mattress is more carefully engineered—but many are engineered equally as carefully as ours.”

The new copy read:

“Our innovative and proprietary materials let us build one of the most comfortable mattresses ever”

Much stronger, no?

Again, these relatively minor tweaks had major implications for Amerisleep: That 13.9% increase in conversion rate we mentioned equated to millions of dollars in added revenue over the course of the next year .

The overarching takeaway here is to write your copy with your audience in mind at all times.

This means:

Ensuring they understand the true value your product will bring to their lives, and what it will enable them to do or accomplish
Instilling a sense of urgency in your visitors, so they not only understand what they have to gain from using your product, but also what they have to lose by not using it
Double- (triple-, and quadruple-) checking your copy to be absolutely certain it means what you want it to mean—and that your visitors will interpret it in the same way

[eCommerce case study #5] Reduce website friction: Company Folders increase conversion by 68%

Company Folders is an established business but had a website that their CEO admitted was “obviously last year”, which is putting it gently.

The main problem they wanted to remedy was their online quote function. This is a vital step in their marketing funnel, so making the process as smooth as possible was essential to ultimately driving more sales for the business.

This sounds a simple task but with over 15 million product combinations, the current quoting system was highly complex. Further to this, there was a very high rate of prospects dropping out of the form partially completed.

Intuitively they assumed that getting the form onto a single page would help get prospects through the process, but after surveying their best customers, they realized that a redesign was necessary.

They took a cumbersome single step process with lots of options and broke it up into a multi-step bite size process (pictured below). Doing this resulted in a whopping 67.68% increase in total quotes .

(Company folders website)

Take home message #3

Breaking down a complicated system into manageable smaller steps can help keep people focused and increase conversion . Though additional clicks can often be seen as new opportunities to lose customers, the Company Folders experience tells us that streamlining to shorter stepped forms is the way to go right now.

How to take your business Direct-to-Consumer: The ultimate guide

Strategies, insights, and tips on how to start and scale a Direct-to-Consumer business.

DOWNLOAD NOW

[eCommerce case study #6] Try cross selling products: Furniture retailer increased its AOV by 4.6% in 41 days

(Note: For this study, the company did not wish to be named, so we will, of course, respect their privacy)

Perhaps the only thing better than getting potential customers to convert in the first place is getting them to add even more items to their cart before converting.

Our anonymous furniture company knows this—which is why they had been aiming to cross-sell a conditioning kit to customers purchasing leather furniture from their online store.

While sales of the company’s “main” products (i.e., furniture) were pretty decent, sales of these smaller complementary items weren’t all that great. The main problem was that most customers simply weren’t even aware the company offered the conditioning kit in the first place. Basically, the only way they would be exposed to the product is if they were to actively browse for it on the company’s website.

(We should also note that the price of the item being cross-sold costs only about 6% of the company’s average order value, while still adding a ton of value to the main product. In other words, making the additional purchase should have been a no-brainer.)

Knowing they needed to do a better job promoting such smaller-ticket items, the company decided to include a call-to-action directly within the shopping cart page when customers added an applicable big-ticket item to their cart.

So, the page went from looking like this:

Ecommerce case study: A furniture store cart | Before

(Your Shopping Cart | Source )

...to looking like this:

Ecommerce case study: A furniture store cart | After

( Your Shopping Cart | Source )

Customers were then able to add the supplementary item to their cart with a single click (by clicking the plus sign), and could also visit the smaller item’s product page by clicking anywhere else within the pink bar.

The results were nothing short of amazing: As per Growth Rock’s data , the company’s average order value had increased by $55 (4.6%) in only 41 days . This equates to an additional $180,000 in monthly revenu e!

The first takeaway, here, is that successfully cross-selling relevant items that add value to your bigger-ticket items (and that add value to your customer experience ) can have a major impact on your overall revenues.

But simply offering such supplementary products isn’t enough on its own. You also need to promote these items specifically as supplementary to the more valuable and expensive items you offer.

(For example, it’s more likely that consumers visiting a furniture eCommerce site will purchase leather cleaner if they’re in the market for leather furniture. That being the case, you’d want to focus on promoting the product specifically to these individuals.)

Going along with this, you also need to present your cross-sell offer at just the right time to get your customers to bite. Here, the company did so as visitors showed a high probability of making a large purchase — a prime moment to add extra value to their overall experience with the brand.

[eCommerce case study #7] Reduce clutter and distractions: Taloon.com ditched social buttons

Taloon.com got caught up in the trend towards social proof, with "Like” and "Share“ icons on their product pages. However, they noticed unusually low conversions on pages with those social sharing buttons.

To test what was going on they created two variants of the same page with and without the social share icons.

(Taloon.com website)

They assumed that by de-cluttering the page, it would keep customers focused on the task at hand - checking out.

The results?

“Pages without social share icons saw an improved “add to cart” click-through by 12% ”

Just because everyone else is doing it doesn’t make it right. Always put yourself in the mindset of your customer, and keep them focused on the main task you want them to complete. Declutter pages with unnecessary actions to focus on making the sale.

[Ecommerce case study #8] Use influencers to reach customers: Gwynnie Bee saw 5.85% CTR from Youtube influencer

By now, you’re probably well aware of how effective influencer marketing can be in spreading brand awareness and social proof, and increasing engagement among your target audience members.

A few years ago, rental clothing e-retailer Gwynnie Bee realized this exact same thing. While the team had experienced a decent amount of success using a number of other marketing strategies (such as Facebook Ads), they knew they could be generating a lot more business than they were.

So, the company partnered with Reelio to get the ball rolling.

Working with Reelio, Gwynnie Bee began digging through YouTube’s massive database of influencers in search of those who aligned with the clothing company’s target market.

Ecommerce case study: Gwynnie Bee ecommerce influencer marketing on YouTube

(Search results for "plus size" on Youtube)

The team’s first order of business was to create a list of potential candidates who fit the “surface-level” characteristics of their target market. This meant finding influencers who were female, aged 18 or older, and who typically wore clothing of sizes 10-32.

Now, here’s where Gwynnie Bee diverged from the “typical” path most brands take. Rather than looking specifically for individuals who often worked with other fashion companies, GB also considered those whose audience overlapped with their own. This meant looking at influencers who create content related to more tangential topics, such as lifestyle, accessories, food, and more.

The team then developed guidelines for their chosen influencers, which enabled them to create content that was authentic and non-scripted—but that also aligns with Gwynnie Bee’s overall marketing goals, as well. In addition to creating content to be presented on the influencer’s channel, GB’s influencers also created a virtual “closet” on the brand’s website to showcase the specific items they loved most.

The results of Gwynnie Bee’s influencer campaigns were...well...pretty darn good. While the average click-through rate of all influencer campaigns hovers around the 2% mark, GB’s campaigns saw a CTR of 5.85% — nearly three times the average .

If you’re just getting started with influencer marketing, the main thing to focus on is finding content creators with an engaged audience full of consumers who align in some way with your own target market. They don’t have to overlap entirely, but you, of course, want to be sure that the people who end up seeing your products will have a genuine appreciation for, and interest in, your brand.

As far as content creation goes , you’ll want to provide your influencer’s with almost completely free rein in order to ensure authenticity. This will communicate to your influencer’s audience the idea that the influencer actually uses your products, and aren’t simply promoting them because they’re getting paid for it.

Finally, you might also consider inviting your influencers to create content on your channels as well as their own platforms. Again, this will prove to their audience that they truly are superfans of your brand who actively engage with everything your company has to offer.

[eCommerce case study #9] Reduce risk of purchase: Express Watches provides authenticity stamp

This is a classic problem for online stores; Do you boast the lowest price or the most authentic products ?

The team at Express Watches were debating whether to communicate a ‘lowest price guarantee’ versus a stamp of authenticity on their website. They tested variants with both, each telling a different story about the clientele: bargain hunters vs aficionados. The results were pretty surprising.

(Lowest prices vs highest authenticity)

By labeling the site with a badge of authenticity, Express Watches saw an increase in online sales of 107% . A huge differential from the price based messaging, simply from a little seal of authenticity.

You may think you know what your audience wants, but testing out some alternate value proposition could surprise you.

[eCommerce case study #10] Use events to drive sales: eCommerce companies saw a 27% spike during football world cup

The Soccer/Football World Cup is not only the most-watched sporting event on television of the 21 st century – it is the most-watched event of any kind, period.

Needless to say, such an enormous audience makes for some major opportunities for eCommerce companies all over the world.

Of course, it also made for heft competition for brands operating in niches like sporting goods, clothing, and memorabilia.

As SEMRush explains, the brands that came out on top were the ones who:

Increased their presence on the right channels (specifically, social media),
Adjusted their ad copy to target soccer fans from specific nations (e.g. whose teams were making a run for the World Cup)
Developed relevant and valuable offers to address time-sensitivity (e.g. fast and free shipping to ensure orders were received before the Wolrd Cup had ended)

The opportunistic initiatives led to some MASSIVE revenues for eCommerce companies. In Brazil, eCommerce purchases spiked by $16.6 BILLION, or 27% above the average . After Germany ended up winning, German-based eCommerce activity increased by a whopping 75%!

First and foremost – and this goes any business, online or brick-and-mortar – you need to recognize an opportunity when it comes up and strike when the iron’s hot.

With this in mind, it’s worth noting that Brazillian-based eCommerce activity dropped by 17% immediately once the national team was eliminated from the tournament.

As far as recognizing these opportunities, you’ll want to keep an eye on upcoming events – be it a sports tournament, music festival, fashion show, etc. – that relate, in some way, to your brand’s offerings.

The goal is to “piggyback” off of the hype created by these events and market your products to those who are attending or engaged with the event in some way or another.

There are two main ways to go about this:

You might simply do as the brands mentioned above did, and ramp up your marketing initiatives throughout the timespan of the event, or, if possible, reach out to the host of the event to see if they’d be interested in partnering up in some way. This might mean sponsoring the event (in lieu of upping your ad spend) or even setting up a pop-up shop at the actual event

[eCommerce case study #11] Remove distractions: Underwater Audio bump sales by 41%

Underwater Audio had a problem with visitors who were in the middle of their sales funnel, researching specific products but then dropping off at the comparison page. When they noticed this leak they decided to get to the bottom of it.

Here are the old and new versions of the page. At first glance, they don’t look too different, but the devil is in the detail.

(Underwater Audio website page comparison)

The original one was a bit more cluttered with the table formatting breaking up the flow of information. To test what the problem was, they redesigned the comparison page to make it simpler and more streamlined.

As their CEO said:

“The (rather) unattractive table had information in terse phrases organized in no particular fashion (activity, seal, size, features, warranty, depth). The paragraphs continued below the fold and essentially repeated the table, with only a few unique additions hidden in the text. In short, it was not the most engaging page!”

The new version did away with the data tables, streamlined the text, and put everything above the fold.

The result? The redesigned page had an increase in online sales of 40.81% .

To quote Occam's Razor, “the simplest solution is often the best” and the simpler flow worked wonders for Underwater Audio. Find pages in your pipeline where users are dropping off and see how you can simplify them to focus your customers.

[eCommerce case study #12] Get customers to take the next step: Kettlebell Kings’s takes advantage of user generated content to drive sales

In yet another case of “x isn’t working as well as we thought, let’s try something else,” the owners of fitness equipment startup Kettlebell Kings switched to a more organic approach after realizing their Google Ads campaigns were costing the company way too much money.

The team’s main focus: Instagram.

Their initiative started simply enough, creating instructional content focused on teaching their audience how to get the most out of their workout sessions.

As engagement began to soar, the team also noticed that its customers had also begun creating their own content featuring Kettlebell Kings’ products—which led the company to begin using this UGC to their advantage.

Ecommerce case study: Kettlebell Kings user-generated Instagram guideline

(#kettlebellkings on Instagram | Source )

In addition to the more audience-controlled content featured in the image above (that is, content featuring Kettlebell King’s products but not published directly on the brand’s Instagram page), the team also began re-posting certain UGC on their own page. As Gwynnie Bee did with its influencers, the Kettlebell Kings team developed a list of criteria such content should follow in order to be featured—but also allowed for some creative freedom on the customer’s part, as well.

While the content being created (by both the team and their customers) did lead to an increase in brand awareness and engagement , the team took things a step further by adding calls-to-action to many of their posts. For example, many posts that featured specific products were made shoppable, while others included an option to “swipe up” to learn more, download additional content, or sign up for the company’s mailing list.

Ecommerce case study: Kettlebell Kings' Instagram story

(Ketttlebell's Instagram shoppable story | Source )

While the brand’s Instagram presence has directly led to “hundreds of thousands” of dollars in revenue, Buffer reports that Kettlebell King’s social media initiatives have played a major role in the company’s rise well into the 7-figure mark .

There are a few lessons to learn here:

Success on social media requires an intensely strategic approach to content creation and presentation. It’s all about presenting your products in a way that showcases their true value to your customers, and how your customers can get this value from your products in the first place.

While user-generated content is always appreciated, that doesn’t mean you need to feature every piece of UGC that comes your way. Again, you only want to showcase content that paints your product in the best light possible, and that provides value of some kind to your audience.

Finally, while using content to enhance engagement is great and all, your main goal should be to get your audience to take “the next step.” Whether it be signing up for your newsletter, reaching out to your company for more info, or going through with an initial purchase, make sure your content prompts your potential customers to engage further with your brand.

The ultimate guide to growing & scaling an eCommerce business

Everything we've learned throughout our 18+ years journey in a 30,000-word PDF guide.

[eCommerce case study #13] Use comparison data: Paperstone took out their competition with data

Paperstone is a small paper company that competes with large brand big box stores like Staples and Viking. With most people defaulting to the brands they know best, Paperstone needed to find a way to leverage their strengths against the competition; lower prices.

Rather than paying top dollar to compete for advertising attention, they simply included a comparison table on their homepage showing their pricing against that of their competitors.

(Paperstone website)

This simple table increased online sales by 10.67%! Just think about how much revenue that would mean for your business, without running any new promotion or campaign .

Assess your competition and identify your strengths. Then showcase these against your competitors’ weaknesses to make your business look like the obvious choice when compared.

[eCommerce case study #14] Test and measure results: MVMT generated $90M in revenue in five years

As a brand new company looking to disrupt the rather saturated luxury watch market, MVMT certainly had its work cut out for them in terms of generating visibility and brand awareness.

So, the team turned to advertising via Facebook.

As far as creating content, MVMT’s approach was similar to Kettlebell Kings’: They worked within specifically-defined guidelines to ensure consistency, created a variety of content, and included clear CTAs within each post.

However, they didn’t simply begin creating brand new content for these ads. Rather, they took a look at the content that had already seen organic success, and routed ad spend directly to promoting these specific posts .

eCommerce case study: MVMT Facebook ads experiment

(Take a guess which one MVMT decided to promote...)

Though they had clearly figured out a way to ensure their ads would generate even more engagement (based on these previous engagement metrics), they also took things a step further by A/B testing various aspects of their ad content, from the images used to the copy of the ad.

While there are a number of lessons to take away from MVMT’s approach, here, the main thing to realize is that creating ads on any platform should never be a gamble.

MVMT could have easily created new ad content targeting its potential customers and simply hoped for the best. Instead, they used data they had already collected to inform their approach to creating Facebook Ads targeting specific audience segments. In turn, these ads were all but

[eCommerce case study #15] Find alternate channels: ECCO Shoes decreased customer acquisition costs by 14%

While creating paid ads is more expensive than going the organic route, some paid options can end up being more (or less) costly than others.

Which is exactly why ECCO Shoes decided to partner with Digital Gearbox while switching from using text-based Google Ads to using image-based Google Shopping Ads.

The first step of the process was to determine which specific products to focus their ad budget on, as well as which audience(s) to target. While the team would end up creating ad campaigns for all of the brand’s products, the initial focus was on getting top-sellers in front of the right potential customers.

The team then developed and optimized their product feed to ensure that any and all necessary information was included within their ads and product pages. This information includes product specs, product images, and any other additional info (such as shipping charges and return policies).

After the ad campaigns went live, the team then shifted into “experimental mode,” where they assessed the performance of each ad and ad campaign, making ongoing adjustments as necessary. In addition to continuous optimization of the product feed and ad content, this also meant adjusting bidding and targeting definitions, as well.

Overall, ECCO’s Google Shopping initiatives proved to be much more cost-effective than text-based ads, as the company’s cost of customer acquisition dropped by an amazing 14% .

The main lesson here is that eCommerce companies with physical products should absolutely look into advertising via Google Shopping.

Google Shopping allows you to showcase much more information in one place than most other forms of advertising (especially text-based Google Ads). In addition to being able to include product specs and service-related info, the inclusion of product imagery alone is enough for Shopping ads to be considered more effective than their text-based relative.

[eCommerce case study #16] Move past the product: Away generated $125M by standing out

As we’ve discussed at length before , Away is the essentially the byproduct of co-founder Jen Rubio’s frustrating experience with an overly-expensive and not-so-durable piece of luggage.

While it would be easy enough for her and partner Steph Korey to simply develop a more sturdy and affordable alternative product to base their new company around, they realized this alone wouldn’t be enough to get their foot in the door in an already saturated market.

Instead, they positioned Away not as just a luggage company, but as a brand focused on all things travel.

Essentially, their reasoning came down to the fact that luggage is more of a means to an end than an end in itself.

As Rubio explains,

"Even before we were like 'let's choose luggage,' we were talking about editorial content and all we can do in the travel space. We see the long-term potential for Away to be much, much more than just selling luggage."

This outlook led to a number of content-related opportunities for the team at Away. Instead of creating content centered around luggage (which, let’s be serious, probably wouldn’t be all that engaging), they created blog posts, podcasts, and even a physical magazine focused on the lifestyle behind luggage and travel.

This enabled the company to stand out in a crowded market, and provide value to their target audience in a way no other luggage brand does. This, in turn, led to massive engagement—and absolutely massive growth for the company, as well.

The take home message here touches on the point we mentioned earlier when discussing Amerisleep’s shift in copywriting strategies:

It’s not about what your product is, so much as what it allows your customers to do, that makes them value your brand.

Rubio and Korey took this idea and ran with it, creating a variety of content to help their audience get more value out of their travel experiences across the board. For them, it’s more important to promote the lifestyle their product is a part of—not just promoting the product itself.

Do you want your target consumers to purchase your products? Of course. But, as Away proves, this can be done in a way so that your promotional materials actually provide value to your audience—and don’t come off as “salesy.”

[eCommerce case study #17] Drive inbound through content marketing: Bavarian Clockworks reached $1m in sales

If you read that headline and your jaw dropped, get ready for another shocker:

With the help of CanIRank’s services , the team at Bavarian Clockworks reached this mark as a brand new company with essentially zero initial following and a very limited marketing budget.

First things first, the team needed to create some high-quality, valuable content for its intended audience. While they, of course, focused on creating instructional and informational content on topics like clock care and repair, they also created content on more tangential topics such as German culture and European travel, as well.

Having a limited marketing budget, they then aimed to promote their content and brand via organic means, such as guest posting and giving interviews to be published on related sites. This enabled the brand to gain some much-needed visibility on established websites with an engaged and relevant following.

The final piece of the puzzle came in the form of technical, on-site SEO. This involved optimizing the organizational structure of the site’s content, creating interlinks between blog posts, and enhancing site loading time.

Ecommerce case study: Bavarian Clockwords SEO case study

(Bavarian Clockworks progress graph)

The results speak for themselves: Bavarian Clockworks ended up hitting the 7-figure mark a mere three years from their humble beginnings .

Perhaps the main thing to take away from Bavarian Clockworks’ success story is that generating an enormous following via organic means is absolutely still possible.

While it’s not exactly easy to do so—and definitely won’t happen overnight—startups on a strict budget might want to consider focusing on building an organic following before diving into the world of paid advertising. Not only is it more cost-effective, but it also inherently allows you to build connections with more established brands that can help you grow well into the future.

That being the case, growing an audience via organic means isn’t an “if you build it, they will come” type deal. You’ll need to do a bit of legwork in order to gain traction.

As the team at Bavarian Clockworks did, this means:

Creating interesting, engaging, and evergreen content that your target audience will find incredibly valuable
Partnering with established companies and organizations to help promote your content to relevant audiences
Providing your new audience with numerous opportunities to engage further with your brand

[eCommerce case study #18] Build loyal engaged followers: Frank Body hit $20M in annual sales

We’ve talked about Frank Body’s meteoric rise to success before —and with good reason.

After all, the beauty industry is already saturated as it is. So it’s pretty crazy to think that a newcomer to the niche would be able to crack $20 million in annual revenue in less than four years.

While (as we mention in our full-length case study) the brand has done a number of things to make this happen, it’s worth pointing out that all of their efforts circle around one main premise:

Creating a community of individuals who feel free to let their guard down, have some fun, and just be themselves.

Even their influencers get in on the action:

Ecommerce case study: Frank Body influencer

(Aviva's Instagram promoting Frank Body)

Now, this might not sound like that big of a deal; a lot of companies are falling back on the “be yourself” motif nowadays.

But, remember: Frank Body is a beauty retailer. In that industry, the message behind most brands’ marketing campaigns is “use our product to look like a Hollywood star instead of plain ol’ you.”

Frank Body is all about allowing their customers to look how they want to look—not how they think they’re “supposed” to look.

It’s this fundamental position that has allowed the brand to grow a following of over 600,000 people, and to reach well into the seven-figure mark in a mere four years

The main message to take away from Frank Body’s strategy, here, is to truly understand who your target customers really are before you build your brand around them.

While this piece of advice isn’t exactly some carefully-guarded secret or anything, the reality is that most brands think they’re marketing to their target audience, when really, they’re marketing to a caricature of them .

In many cases, this is because brands simply follow the same path others in their niche have before them. While there’s nothing wrong with doing so if it works for your brand, there are other times where you’d be better off bucking the trend and going your own way.

For Frank Body, this meant building a brand around a community of people who use beauty products to show off their natural selves, not hide them. While there’s no way of knowing for sure, it’s rather safe to say the company probably wouldn’t have experienced the same amount of success had it gone the typical marketing route most beauty companies typically do.

While this piece isn’t exactly some carefully-guarded secret or anything, the reality is that most brands think they’re marketing to their target audience, when really they’re marketing to a caricature of them .

[eCommerce case study #19] Be relevant to your customers: Society Socks improved survey response rate by 200%

We’ve mentioned a few times now the importance of engaging with your audience to gather feedback and make improvements to your products and services.

But the fact is, there’s no guarantee your customers will take it upon themselves to provide this feedback in the first place. Even if you actively reach out to them, the odds of them not responding are still greater than the chances of them getting back to you.

Knowing this, the team at Society Socks worked to develop a collection of user-friendly surveys targeting consumers at various stages of the sales funnel and buyer’s journey. Their goal was to ensure that each recipient received a survey that was 100% relevant to their experiences with the brand, and also that each survey was incredibly easy to complete.

Ecommerce case study: Society Socks and Feedier customer satisfaction survey

(Society Soda feedback)

As co-founder Filip Pejic explains:

"Our current campaigns are set up at various stages including Post-Purchase, Mid Subscription and at Cancellation. We’ve integrated the solution into our email system to send automated flows depending on our customers’ stage in the buying process. This allows us to gain a ton of feedback at every point in a customer’s journey and control the number of surveys they receive."

Society Socks also took a look at the more logistical aspects of survey delivery, such as delivery method and timing. This ensured that their audience would receive the surveys on the optimal channel (in this case, email) at a time in which they were most likely to respond.

The most obvious takeaway here, of course, is that you need to learn as much as you can about your customers’ expectations and experiences with your brand.

As Feedier explains, this means defining or determining:

Your various customer personas and segments
The aspects of your products (and overall service) each persona values most
The aspects each persona wishes could be improved

As we’ve said before, gleaning this information (and more) from your audience will allow you to make improvements to your products and services that actually matter to the people who keep your company in business.

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Hailing from Ireland, Paul is a fan of good food and coffee. For Core dna he’s responsible for Partnerships both with agencies and 3 rd party integrators.

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Top 10 Inspiring E-Commerce Case Studies To Learn From

CEO Avada Commerce

Maintaining relevance should be a primary concern in the fiercely competitive realm of digital commerce.

With that in mind, in this article, we’ve compiled the following eight real-world e-commerce business case studies to assist you in attracting more customers and boosting revenue.

Key Takeaways

The article highlights 10 businesses that enhanced their e-commerce performance using Bloomreach solutions, including Bosch, Topdanmark, The Vitamin Shoppe, Albertsons, HD Supply, My Jewellerry, Debra’s, Burrow, Rakuten 24, and Al-Bahar.

Bosch Power Tools, part of the global Bosch Group, understands the importance of keeping pace with industry trends, especially those influenced by Amazon. Their case study about e-commerce is among the most famous examples of how an eCommerce brand overcomes its challenges.

Given their multiple international sites, Bosch recognized the need for a tailored digital experience for its customers. Their main challenge was offering unique experiences for each country while presenting a cohesive global presence.

Bosch established uniform technology systems and processes to address this challenge. This wasn’t just about control but about boosting momentum in every region.

Bosch then adopted a headless commerce approach, paired with Bloomreach Content. Unlike traditional systems, headless commerce separates the back and front ends. Combined with Bloomreach Content, this strategy allows Bosch to update the front end without disrupting operations, making processes more efficient.

As a result, Bosch can now quickly introduce features worldwide, aligning with the company’s goals and offering custom experiences from one country to another.

Additionally, Bosch has teamed up with Bloomreach and SAP. The Bloomreach Commerce Experience Cloud integrates seamlessly with the SAP Commerce Cloud, a key component of SAP’s Industry Cloud Program available on the SAP Store. This partnership enables Bosch to offer personalized experiences across all channels for every customer journey.

Topdanmark, Denmark’s second-largest insurance company, is committed to managing insurance and pension schemes for its customers while building trust. As it advances in the digital realm with Bloomreach Content, Topdanmark encountered challenges common to many financial services companies.

The main challenges of Tondanmark include dealing with cumbersome legacy systems filled with customer data and creating custom customer elements rapidly. In choosing a platform for their digital experience, Topdanmark sought a solution that met three critical criteria:

Ongoing product development.
An easier way to share content across multiple brands.
A customer-centric online experience.

Solutions

Topdanmark sought a continually updated platform with a vibrant developer community capable of integrating with top-tier technologies and enabling its developers to enhance user experiences. Thus, they turned their attention to open-architecture CMS platforms.

For them, flexibility was crucial. They needed to test and assess new features for customers quickly. This includes letting customers easily enhance their primary insurance coverage. After seeing vital positive feedback, they made this feature a permanent option.

In their search for a platform that supported rapid innovation, Topdanmark found Bloomreach Content to be the perfect fit. With Bloomreach Content, Topdanmark smoothly shifted 500 URLs over 13 two-week periods. They also set up a responsive CMS designed for current and future efficiency.

The Vitamin Shoppe

The Vitamin Shoppe®, a global wellness retailer, offers customers reliable products, advice, and services for their wellness journey. They observed that, although their search function efficiently helped customers find specific items, there was room to enhance their category browsing experience.

A Health Enthusiast would help uncertain customers by recommending products tailored to their needs in physical stores. Yet, before using Bloomreach, The Vitamin Shoppe had no online system to offer this level of personalized guidance.

To address and optimize its category pages, The Vitamin Shoppe incorporated Bloomreach Search and Merchandising to entice more site visitors into exploring and searching for products.

Upon deploying Bloomreach Discovery, The Vitamin Shoppe witnessed an uplift of 11% in the add-to-cart rate for category pages. Additionally, there was a 2% surge in revenue per visitor (RPV) for those who initiated their journey via these category pages.

In the realm of search pages, after a mere two weeks post-implementation, The Vitamin Shoppe observed a 7.73% enhancement in the search add-to-cart rate, a 6.51% ascent in the search average order value (AOV), and a 5.69% rise in RPV (Source: bloomreach ).

These advancements boosted The Vitamin Shoppe’s revenue and enriched the shopping experience for their customers, further aiding them in their pursuit of wellness objectives.

Albertsons – an e-commerce case study

Albertsons, a company committed to delivering a consistent and unique omnichannel customer experience, has always been at the forefront of e-commerce innovation. As one of the first grocery chains to initiate online delivery in the 2000s, Albertsons has consistently strived to offer customers personalized content that enhances brand loyalty, making it one of the most innovative grocery brands in the market.

Albertsons saw that over half of e-commerce sales came from search and knew they needed better search results for their loyal customers.

In physical stores, shoppers usually start with a list and know where items are. Online, they begin with a search. Bloomreach Discovery’s Semantic Search uses natural language processing, detailed attribute extraction, and previous visitor actions to show the most relevant products.

Thanks to Bloomreach Discovery, Albertsons used artificial intelligence to give sharper search results, making their brand experience more personal for shoppers. Beyond tailored search results, Albertsons also began suggesting products using Bloomreach’s algorithms.

After adding Bloomreach Discovery, Albertsons saw a 25% jump in the speed of building shopping baskets, showing that customers found what they wanted faster.

HD Supply, a large company, is updating its digital strategy to address ongoing challenges and better serve customers in today’s digital world. Their e-commerce team looked into their current systems and how customers used them. They found that customers wanted a faster, more dependable way to buy items.

So, HD Supply focused on making it easier for customers to quickly find and buy products, helping them return to their day. A vital part of this was upgrading the add-to-cart feature.

HD Supply realized that using ready-made technology would reduce the need for heavy changes later. So, they picked Bloomreach Discovery for their site search needs.

Understanding customers wanted faster shopping, HD Supply revamped its search feature. Customers can see product details from the search bar and add items to their cart directly.

HD Supply used the Bloomreach algorithm for most search results to lighten their team’s load. The company noticed a 16% rise in search-related revenue thanks to these changes, showing how well the Bloomreach system works.

My Jewellery

My Jewellery – an e-commerce case study

In a world where consumers are increasingly concerned about data protection, businesses are becoming more cautious about data collection. This includes My Jewellery, a Netherlands-based clothing and jewelry retailer. My Jewellery aims to enhance the customer experience for its loyal patrons while respecting their personal data privacy.

My Jewellery used Bloomreach Engagement to lead in collecting zero-party data. They introduced a unique approach that engages customers while valuing their privacy.

With their “style profile test,” customers simply indicate if they like a shown item. This game boosts customer experience without compromising privacy. Items appear individually; customers click a heart or X to share their tastes. Based on this, My Jewellery creates a personalized style profile.

After sharing an email, customers get their style profile based on their choices. This method has proven beneficial. Emails using style profile data had a 20% higher open rate than regular campaigns, highlighting the importance of such innovative data collection.

DeBra’s, an Australian company specializing in women’s undergarments, lingerie, and swimwear since 2000, has seen substantial growth in online and offline channels over the past 21 years.

The advancement of modern technologies led to DeBra’s online business exceeding its expectations, necessitating a new online platform to facilitate future growth. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, with the surge in women shopping online, DeBra’s aimed to ensure their online presence could deliver a digital experience equivalent to an in-store fitting.

DeBra’s team identified BigCommerce as the optimal solution for their business, logistics, and marketing needs. BigCommerce’s open API functionality allowed DeBra’s website to easily integrate with other technologies, such as a POS system, enhancing its marketing and customer experience.

BigCommerce also enabled DeBra’s to launch a virtual fitting service. Their in-store staff serves as virtual assistants in this service, helping customers enjoy a professional, digitally appropriate experience.

Burrow – an e-commerce case study

Burrow, a B2C furniture store established in 2017, was founded to eliminate the inconveniences of traditional furniture shopping. However, once their business achieved $3 million in sales, they encountered system issues with their existing online platform. Their business growth had outpaced their eCommerce solution.

Additionally, the Burrow team needed practical content management tools that would allow them to update landing pages without requiring extensive technical expertise.

Burrow separated their website’s front and back ends using headless commerce. This approach provided them with the flexibility to create a unique shopping experience. Thanks to a headless CMS, the Burrow team could freely use available templates and customize marketing-focused content as needed.

They could continually update and adjust content across channels to align with targeted customers. Furthermore, Burrow recognized the importance of offering customers unique logistical features, including the ability to delay orders and require signatures on delivery.

Rakuten 24, an online branch of Japan’s top e-commerce company, Rakuten, sells everyday items like groceries and healthcare products. Seeing the fast rise of mobile shopping, Rakuten 24 aimed to create a top-notch mobile experience for its users.

Although Rakuten 24 is newer to Japanese consumers, pouring a lot of resources into making specific apps for iOS and Android might not be the best move. Instead, they felt a well-designed, user-friendly mobile website could be a more innovative alternative for Rakuten 24’s mobile presence.

Rakuten 24 built a Progressive Web App (PWA) to increase market share and improve user retention to deliver a seamless web experience across all browsers. Their PWA successfully combined the best features of native apps with the extensive reach of the mobile web. Rakuten 24 also provided a detailed guide on manually installing the PWA on Android and iOS devices for mobile web users.

Based in Kuwait, Al-Bahar is a leading supplier of FMCG products, electronics, and office tools from top brands like Unilever and GE. It’s a trusted name in the Middle East. However, despite its strong reputation and heavy website traffic,

Al-Bahar faced web issues like slow speeds and frequent downtimes. The main causes were poor hosting choices, an outdated CMS, and using Magento 1, which was no longer supported.

Given the website’s needs, a significant overhaul was in order, but this came with risks like data loss and compatibility problems. Al-Bahar needed to be careful.

After teaming up with SimiCart, a recognized PWA development agency, Al-Bahar updated its site based on SimiCart’s guidance. SimiCart suggested transitioning the front end to a Magento PWA and shifting from Magento 1 to Magento 2 for the backend.

This transition not only ensured data preservation but also boosted the store. With a PWA interface, Al-Bahar enjoys faster speeds, greater adaptability, and a smoother user shopping experience.

Bottom line

These eCommerce case studies unveil novel strategies and tactics on how others have tackled challenges in the eCommerce field. You can learn from their experiences to overcome challenges while running an eCommerce business. Follow our next articles to explore additional information related to case study email examples or case study questions examples .

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