Building your brand - Retail industry
Creating brand loyalty
Building a compelling value proposition for your fashion apparel brand.
Why?
Nurturing existing customers is extremely cost-effective.
It’s about five times more expensive to acquire new customers than to retain current ones.
According to research, 50% of loyal shoppers are more likely to try new products and spend 31% more, on average, compared to new customers.
Loyal shoppers spend more
37% of shoppers are willing to spend more on a brand they like even when there are cheaper options elsewhere.
Indicator of company success
Loyal customers can achieve increased numbers in average order value, average revenue per user, customer lifetime value, and conversion rates. Hitting these targets can provide brands with resistance to economic challenges like inflation and recession that force shoppers to become more cautious with their spending.
Word of mouth
Organic recommendations. At least 62% of customers will recommend a brand to a friend after receiving great service. Further, 77% will recommend a brand to a friend after just a single positive experience.
How would you create customer stickiness?
Data Security
A secure online shopping experience is extremely important to consumers today.In fact, 81% will refuse to purchase from a brand that they don’t trust and 89% will disengage from a brand that breaches their trust..
Emotional Connect
When brands deliver a positive experience that fosters feelings of fondness, the chance of repeat purchases skyrockets. According to a survey of more than 19,000 customers in the U.S. and UK, emotional connection was the biggest driver of value – accounting for 43% of business value – far outweighing product features, which came in second at 20%
Shared Values
Today’s customers place a high value on social causes. In fact, a whopping 90% said they’d stay loyal to a brand if it shares similar values to their own.
Personalization
Unique experiences and social interactions. If you are able to replicate the personalized experience of in-store interactions with shop assistants and provide an online community of like-minded users, this will give more value to your brand and your site
What are the challenges?
Fashion Industry Slump
After the gains of the last two years, the fashion industry is headed towards a slump, according to Business of Fashion and McKinsey & Company. About 85% predict inflation will continue to challenge the market in 2023.
Friction in Shopping
58% believe that the disruptions in supply chains and energy will weaken the market.That’s not even considering the billions of dollars lost due to unnecessary friction in shopping, such as flawed checkout and website design..
Focus on affordability
While experts anticipate that higher-income households will be less affected, others will cut back their spending, especially on non-essential items like extra apparel. Customers are also likely to shop around before committing to a purchase. Almost half of them will switch to more affordable options and look around for discounts, given a chance
Trust
Shoppers already struggle in trusting brands they used to buy from, due to issues such as misinformation, less-than-transparent data collection, and overexposure to branded content.
Negative Customer Experience
When brands fail to meet expectations and, in the post-pandemic world, those expectations often place a higher value on the customer experience than the product itself. According to a recent survey, the top reason Americans of all ages would speak poorly about a brand was a negative customer experience, not a poor experience with a product..
Strategy to building loyalty
1. Product Discovery
Customers like having choices, but having too many options can easily overwhelm them. So if your brand has many (thousands to millions) of SKUs, you should focus on making it easier for shoppers to find the perfect product as quickly as possible. AI-based technologies such as fashion image search and personalized product recommendation engines can pave the way for intuitive and continuous product discovery, even if
an item is out-of-stock.
2. Seamless search
Nearly half of online shoppers already feel the positive effects of automation. When applied to on-site search functions, the experience becomes even more seamless. With deep AI tagging, brands can surface items even when a shopper’s keywords are not an exact match to the tags listed in the product catalogue. This is critical for a number of reasons – it provides a better shopping experience with the most relevant search results and, importantly, it conveys a company’s understanding of the needs and expectations of its site visitors, which 66% anticipate. When you look after your shoppers’ needs and don’t let them sift through pages of irrelevant results, you communicate how important they are to you.
3. Visualization
Customers don’t always know what they want or might only have vague ideas of what they’re after. With custom galleries, you can come up with looks that shoppers can replicate via direct links to the product detail pages. The collections can be organized according to occasion, promotions, styles, price points, and more. With these pages, you can prolong the time customers’ stay on your site, making them more likely to convert instead of dropping their browsing after 10-20 seconds..
4. Image Search Personalization
Enable shoppers to find clothes they’ll love by uploading pictures they’ve snapped on their mobile phones directly to your website. AI-powered image search tools can quickly and accurately identify numerous granular details from a single photo, such as color, texture, shape, style, material, and occasion, in order to surface all of the visually similar items available from your product catalogue.
5. Product Recommendation Engine
Customers don’t have to navigate online shopping alone. Your website can function like an in-store shop assistant – or a friend – who can help customers zero in on products that fit their style. Product recommendation engines, which come in different forms and user interfaces such as “Shop the Look” and “Shop the Collection” carousels or “Shop Similar” buttons or banners, can surface highly personalized results using a combination of AI tagging, customer behavior, and intent for context
6. Superior Customer Service
You need to be able to assist them whenever they need it, from product discovery all the way to delivery. Excellent customer service makes a big difference in gaining loyal customers. An overwhelming 93% make repeat purchases after positive experiences with customer service. This makes it extremely important to provide as much information upfront as possible, and to offer different ways for customers to be in touch should they need it. For example, you should make it clear how long deliveries will take, what your return policy is, and how to track orders. In addition, you can offer a customer service phone hotline, chatbot, and email, so that every customer has a way that’s comfortable for them to reach out.
7. Loyalty Programs
Brands can develop their own gimmicks to encourage membership into their loyalty programs. It can be point-based, game-based, or tiered, among others. Membership can encourage more purchases, so it pays to let customers know the perks they’re earning and how they can redeem deals and incentives in clear terms. For Dynamite Clothing, the loyalty program is tiered, with birthday gifts, exclusive offers, free shipping, and more available to its members. Paid memberships also encourage more spending and stronger relationships. For example, 62% of consumers spend more money on a brand after signing up for a paid loyalty program
8. Being Authentic
Today’s fashion shoppers are becoming more socially conscious. A 2021 McKinsey survey found that 80% of US consumers said that sustainability matters when they’re choosing a fashion brand to shop from. Luisaviaroma’s LVRSustainable movement, which aims to build a community supporting conscious fashion, draws in customers who are concerned about the planet and its people.
9. Mobile / AR / VR
Push notifications have been found to increase app engagement by 88%. When your site or app is responsive on mobile, you can support more frequent and successful customer journeys. AR has the potential to redefine how people interact with fashion. It can provide a more immersive and personal experience that allows users to try on clothes without ever leaving their homes. This 3D apparel design technology can also be used to create virtual fitting rooms, where users can see how an outfit looks on them before they buy it. With VR, designers can create virtual prototypes of their designs and see how they look on a model before they’re even created in real life. This helps to speed up the design process and make it more efficient.
10. The Personal Touch
How do you make customers think of you even when they’re not on your website or mobile app? You reach out, be it through email, sms, social media, or other means. Shoppers appreciate it: 72% actually expect companies to initiate personalized communication.
