Sizing recommendations drive a 7% revenue increase for T.M. Lewin

Client T.M. Lewin
Industry Retail

We were brought on by T.M.Lewin to help increase revenue from their ecommerce store and enhance their online multi-buy offering. By conducting quantitative and qualitative research and running a full-scale experimentation program, we were able to achieve both of these goals, increasing online sales by more than 7%.

Opportunity

Shopping for clothes online is the new norm for most. But, with 100’s of new clothing e-tailers emerging every year, how can more traditional brands, like T.M Lewin, stay relevant and competitive in an ecommerce world?

When we spoke to T.M. Lewin before their peak Christmas trading season in 2018, this is exactly the dilemma they faced.

As one of the top retailers of shirts and accessories in the UK, T.M. Lewin were keen to bring their long history of innovation within their product offering to other areas of their business, namely online.

Without the luxury of a changing room, the expertise of a helpful sales assistant or the ease of browsing styles on the shelves, T.M. Lewin needed to translate this quality and differentiated experience to their website.

T.M. Lewin’s Director of Online, Cormac Folan, recognised they needed to make some changes to their online platform to increase customer conversion, with three key goals to stay ahead of the curve:

Increase revenue from their ecommerce store

Increase their multi-buy offering

Make their quality stand out from the competition

Having worked with Conversion before for another optimization project, T.M. Lewin knew they could achieve significant results with us.

In a short 3-month timeline, we helped T.M Lewin drive a considerable revenue increase, as well as gain valuable customer insight for future experimentation.

Solution

With the three key goals in mind, we kickstarted the project with in-depth quantitative and qualitative research to identify any current bottlenecks on the website, while uncovering any clear opportunities for improvement.

Using T.M Lewin’s existing Google Analytics data, we tracked the user journey to understand where customers were dropping off the site. The results identified that the listing and product pages saw the biggest drop-offs, which was an immediate lightbulb moment, as these pages obviously can create the biggest monetary impact.

In our commitment to understanding the business further and uncover any hidden gems, the Conversion team attended new staff ‘Training Days’ at T.M. Lewin to better understand the products and their quality. This came with the added bonus of incorporating staff contribution and feedback into the re-build of the website (which was being worked on in the background).

Meanwhile, we ran a number of qualitative surveys with online customers to help better understand, from their perspective, how the site could be improved. Where didn’t the consumer experience flow? What was causing them to lose interest? What could be clearer and how could the experience be enhanced?

As a result of all of the research, three key themes stood out. From there, user tests were run against the following hypothesis:

Users were uncertain of the size and fit of the products (particularly on collars and sleeve length)

Lack of clear communication around savings and multi-buy offers led to misunderstanding and website drop-off

T.M. Lewin’s quality differentiation was not perceived by web visitors

We dealt with each hypothesis in turn. First off, we tackled the sizing and fit concern. Rather than focusing on the complexities of explaining size / fit in detail), both Conversion and T.M. Lewin agreed it would make more sense to clearly communicate the returns policy.

‘What if it doesn’t fit?’ became a clear message across the site on product pages – demonstrating that customers could easily return unsuitable products to the almost 100 stores nationwide or online, to get a full refund.

To address the concern that savings and multi-buy offering were not clearly communicated, we suggested adding a ‘recommendation’ function. By positioning a matched product to the customer, based on their sizing and preferences, when they’re already in their path to purchase, not only was the user journey more seamless, but also the offers and savings were much more obvious.

T.M. Lewin agreed that the sizing concern and multi-buy offering were the main priorities to tackle and would make the biggest impact for the customer. So, we led with these solutions, with the third area of quality perception left to wider internal discussions.

 

“I’ve been really impressed with Conversion.com and how involved they got with the business…they even came on a training course that’s given for new starters, which is a level of commitment you don’t usually get.”

Cormac Folan Director of Online

Result

The results were clear:

The experiments increased sales by 7% specifically across mobile devices, which was a huge win for T.M. Lewin heading into peak season

The experiments carried out under our ‘returns’ lever (the principle we believe is affecting user behavior) had a win rate of 50%

Based on the sizing recommendation of new products, when a size was was pre-selected for the customer, T.M Lewin saw more than a 7% uplift in sales

Overall, T.M. Lewin were very happy with the results and continue to work with Conversion on new projects. But don’t just take our word for it…

Cormac Folan, Director of Online from T.M. Lewin, said:

”Conversion are giving us more clarity on our roadmap, and how we feed it’s development… we’ve already identified three different levers on the site we are testing which is helping to convert the customers.’

I’ve already recommended three other businesses so far.’’

7%

In Uplift in monthly sales as result of
experimentation

50%

Increase conversion from altered
returns messaging

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