Website Closers® presents a flourishing brand leader in the footwear, handbag, and fashion accessories niche. With a professionally designed website and an incredible 75% year over year growth rate, this eCommerce Retailer is a “shoe-in” for success. Since its inception in 2017, this company has expanded to bring in a projected 6.3 Million in annual sales revenue for 2021. What an impressive fete!
Specializing in footwear and accessories, an exclusively online sales presence has kept overhead low for optimal margins. Fashion-savvy women aged 30-40 make up the majority of the target market, resulting in predictable sales and great success with a seasonal release model. A partnership with a global production and shipping agency allows for over 220 SKUs to be offered while maintaining only two small, 400-foot warehouse spaces in the US and Portugal. These spaces are primarily used for returns and stocking best-selling items for faster dispatch, while most of their shipments are made and shipped on-demand directly from their production partner. The majority of their shipments are made to the US, with additional orders shipping to Canada, Australia, and the UAE. The Portugal warehouse allows for future growth options, putting booming markets in France, Germany, and the UK on the table.
Semi-annual collection releases drive brand hype and keep stock diverse, with sandals being released for the Spring-Summer season and boots hitting shelves for the Autumn-Winter crowd. The current company strategy takes advantage of pre-sales on planned items to gauge which pieces will be best-sellers, and which should be only made-to-order. Social media advertising channels can step out of the box by using these twice-yearly events to host sneak-previews, hold “collection drop” countdowns, and more.
Aggressive social media marketing puts this retailer in a class all its own. Over 112,000 active Instagram followers and an email subscriber list clocking in at 108,000 and growing pump an impressive flow of traffic to their online store. An affiliate marketing program has also proven successful with social media micro-influencers, bringing in 6.68x return on investment while converting collaboration requests into sales. Seeing upwards of 130,000 unique monthly visitors, there is no shortage of interest in this trendy, fashion-forward brand.
In addition to organic social media engagement, Google Ads and Facebook Ads have both been vital in driving revenue. 90% of ad spend typically goes to Facebook, targeting both the eponymous platform as well as Instagram with new ad campaigns every week. 60-70% of this targets cold traffic, with the remainder focused on visitors with recognizable indicators of potential past interest. Overall, the company’s lifetime ROI for Facebook marketing rings up at 4.2x. Expansion in advertising opportunities with Google Ads hold promise, as well. While Google Ads represent a small share of investments currently, tentative returns are as high as 10x the initial cost. Experimenting with future use of this platform could yield excellent results.
Third-party contractors assist with keeping social media interactions fresh, friendly, and natural. A Canadian agency takes care of responding to social media comments from customers in a timely fashion and directs customers to escalation points when more help is needed.
Additional growth for this blossoming brand can be achieved by expanding staffing to better handle increased sales volume and improve shipping speeds. There are currently four full-time employees, as well as one part-time-employee, between both the US and Portugal warehouse location. The current staff has limited specialized eCommerce and sales experience but hiring on the right professionals could lead to rapid scaling on all fronts. The current website features only basic SEO, and more markets could also be reached by optimizing the current system or hiring a specialist to make the website pop on search engines.
This retailer currently sells third-party manufactured, quality handmade leather goods, but has no specific line of their own (although they do use branded tags and packaging). A proprietary line of branded goods could help this company dig its heels in and secure a place amongst the market’s forerunners.
