In early 2020, the eCommerce industry entered an unforeseen era of increased demand and dependency from shoppers around the world. As international borders began to close and flights were grounded, retailers and buyers experienced extended shipping delays and products running out of stock without an easily estimated restock date. Products that were generally not in high demand online and could be easily purchased from brick-and-mortar stores, were now highly sought after via online shopping as countries entered lockdown and high street shops were forced to close their doors.
Along with increased demand for unexpected items, retailers were forced to diversify as a brand to keep up with the unusual trends of pandemic life, which were characterized by fashionable loungewear, home goods, and face masks.
Challenge
Joe Browns is a prime example of a fashion company needing to adjust to this shift and used Apptus eSales to help anticipate their shoppers’ pandemic shopping patterns.
With the unpredictability of the pandemic, Joe Browns needed insight on purchase trends, and they needed it quickly. Near the beginning of the pandemic in the UK, when a national mandate on wearing facemasks was issued, Joe Browns determined that customers were searching for face masks.
This insight, from the eSales Site Search Report, was shared with their product and development team to increase their supply and variety of face masks since they could see this was a very popular item, given the eSales report results.
Solution
With eSales, Joe Browns was also able to determine their customers’ changing search behaviour and adjust certain collections based on customer preferences. Shoppers wanted “stay-at-home” wear and no longer needed formalwear and business attire. So as a result, Joe Browns reacted by refraining from pushing formalwear and instead, expanded and even launched new collections based around home comfort and the casualization of womenswear.
During this transition, Joe Browns relied on the eSales Site Search tool to ensure items could be easily found amongst their new collections and lines. eSales offers an intelligent automated merchandising system with progressive conceptual understanding to provide shoppers with the most relevant results based on their search words or phrases. This conceptual understanding was especially beneficial in helping customers find and browse household items, as Joe Browns began to expand with more home goods to support the stay-at-home lifestyle.
Results
For Joe Browns, online sales have been strong as they have been flexible enough to adjust to the needs of their customers in the pandemic. This is partly due to the simplicity and efficiency of implementing Apptus eSales Site Search. The Site Search feature is optimized to understand what customers are shopping for and provide analytics and reports back to the retailer on these search phrases. Understanding search behaviour was a necessity for Joe Browns in navigating online retail in the pandemic.
At Apptus, we are thrilled to learn of Joe Browns’ consistent success in sales during this otherwise inconsistent and complicated time. We are looking forward to seeing how Joe Browns will continue to benefit from product recognition technology available in eSales.
