Soyaconcept offers fashionable, high-quality womenswear, launching six collections yearly. Embracing sustainability is a core value and everything it sells is high quality and long-lasting. It positions its brand as “We’re Danish, we’re solid and we’re here to bring everyday fashion to all women. We call it comfortably uncomplicated.” Building and enhancing this Soyaconcept brand concept is critical to the company’s success.
Traditionally, Soyaconcept’s main business is wholesale, supplying retail stores in much of northern Europe, the United Kingdom and Ireland and as far afield as Canada. But in 2018 it launched into direct-to-consumer eCommerce. Consequently, digital marketing channels are relatively new to the organisation, and it has moved cautiously to ensure that its brand values are never compromised and that its eCommerce activity does not undermine Soyaconcept’s business-to-business relationships with high street retailers. Moreover, Soyaconcept seeks out eCommerce partners that share its values.
The Challenge
While Soyaconcept appeals to women of all ages and all shapes and sizes, its core target market consists largely of mature women, many of whom are non-digital natives.
Britt Kristensen, Soyaconcept’s Marketing and eCommerce Manager, joined the company in February 2019, bringing a wealth of experience in fashion marketing. She further explains the attitudes of the target shoppers: “When they are in a high street store, our customers typically want and expect a high level of service from a knowledgeable, friendly and helpful shop assistant.”
“Replicating that experience online is challenging, given that many of our customers are uncomfortable with technology and may find it difficult to use. Our objective, therefore, was to make the online shopping experience ‘comfortably uncomplicated’, just like our fashion.” - Britt Kristensen, Marketing and eCommerce Manager, Soyaconcept
Having built an eCommerce platform, Soyaconcept needed something extra to create a great shopping experience. For 18 months the company experimented with a conventional AI-based personalisation platform, but the results were disappointing. “Despite putting in a lot of effort to make it work, we had to discontinue it after about 18 months,” Britt says.
Solution
Guidance rather than recommendations
Britt wasn’t actively looking for a replacement to this personalisation tool when she heard from Shopbox AI. “I was intrigued and decided to arrange a demo. What first caught my eye about Shopbox was the Shopping Assistant that appears on the bottom left of the screen. Our customers are looking for guidance rather than recommendations, by which I mean they want to feel confident in their choices.”
“When I saw the Shop Assistant and ‘More Like This’ features, I immediately felt these would help them to find products that are similar to what they are already looking at but perhaps a better match to their personal tastes and preferences.”
AI Shopping Assistant showing tailored product recommendations on Soyaconcept.dk's Product Listing Page (Desktop and mobile)
Fully aligned with brand identity
Britt says these features show that “Soyaconcept takes an interest in its customers as individuals”. Given the importance of Soyaconcept’s brand identity, Shopbox AI dedicated time to make sure the Shopbox elements matched seamlessly with the website look and colour palette. To a shopper, they look like native elements of the experience.
Shopbox was installed in June 2022 and delivered immediate results. Since then, Britt says, “Shopbox AI has done everything we asked for”.
A great first impression
“We subsequently decided to implement the Shopbox curated homepage. This gives a better first impression when shoppers land on one of our websites. It means we can put products in front of them dynamically, providing more real-time guidance and better choices than just sending them to the New Arrivals,” Britt says.
Dynamically generated product suggestions on Soyaconcept.dk's homepage
Results
“By giving shoppers more confidence in their choices, Shopbox has influenced buying behaviour in a positive direction,” says Britt.
Latest figures show a 390% increase in the conversion rate for shoppers who engage with Shopbox, a 14% increase in average order value, a more than fourfold increase in dwell time on the website, and a 2.2 times increase in products viewed per session. “The numbers are all great, but the bigger picture is that we have achieved the uplift in online sales while protecting Soyaconcept’s brand values of quality and sustainability and without reducing prices. This goes to the heart of my mission as head of marketing and eCommerce, while also being vital to the continuing success of the boutique stores that are customers of our wholesale business,” Britt concludes.
“We’ve seen turnover increase more than forecast in the six months since we introduced Shopbox.”
