Thread by @equartey

The @FashionNova online store uses so many interesting growth tactics to boost conversion rates and increase basket size. It's pretty remarkable. If you run an ecommerce store or D2C brand there're some neat ideas there. Quick notes (thread 👇🏿) #productnotes

Most ecommerce stores hit you with a modal asking for an email address to get a discount. If you're like me you've probably trained yourself to close them as soon as they pop up. FashionNova puts a literal spin on it - the first thing you see is a Wheel of Fortune-style game

I suspect the wheel is rigged to give everyone the biggest prize 😀 Note the copy: "Enter your email to claim your prize" both implies scarcity while also pushing the subliminal message that you've *earned* the right to give them your email! I bet their opt-in rates are high

Note the checkbox to send to FB Messenger. Not obvious what benefit this gives shoppers. But for FN the ability to message customers in Messenger is likely huge. Apparently clickthrough and open rates in Messenger are high, even compared to email medium.com/olyo/messenger…

They continue to push Messenger pretty hard, which makes sense. As a merchant, being able to send messages to customers in their favourite chat app lets you bypass fickle social media newsfeed algorithms, and also lets you reach demographics who might not check their emails often

(An aside: I wonder if Facebook will ever make it possible for customers to subscribe to *WhatsApp* in this way. That'd be a lot more exciting for the thousands of social media merchants, especially in the emerging world)

One more thing about the wheel. If you reject the prize for any reason, there's a handy persistent message at the bottom left that reminds you to that you're owed a discount. (Also yes I was on FashionNova because I wanted to see their new #FNxCARDI collection w/ @iamcardib lmao)

Notice how colourfully the clothes are named. Most stores have functional names like "Belted T-shirt Dress" but FN has "Lollipoppin' In My Cutout Jacket - Black" It's a small detail but I'd bet this helps with conversions (I wonder if the names are lines frm actual Cardi B songs)

The entire store seems obsessively optimized for speed of checkout. While other stores require you to go to the product page to add the item to cart, on FashionNova you can throw items into your cart right from the landing page (Screenshots: FashionNova, ASOS, rue21)

And when you add the item to cart it doesn't mutely disappear into your bag like what happens on some store websites. Instead, the checkout pane IMMEDIATELY pops opens up and offers you three loud checkout options. And note the inclusion of @amazonpay as a payment method

While Amazon Pay isn't yet as widespread as PayPal, it's almost certain you can expect to see that button a lot more in the near future. Some useful links about Amazon Pay
1. pay.amazon.com/us/blog/worldp…
2. digiday.com/retail/brand-p…
3. bigcommerce.com/blog/amazon-pa…

Still on the topic of speed, there's a Quick Look feature that allows you to quickly get more details about a product, still without needing to go to the product page.

The Checkout pane seems highly optimized as well. There's a Share Your Cart button (the button to the left of the close button) which gives you a link you can *share with someone else* so that they can pay for things on your behalf.

As soon as the person opens the link, both the copy ("Items in your cart are in high demand. But we have reserved your order.") and the animated countdown create a sense of urgency to get the person to pay as quickly as possible (as opposed to choosing to take care of it later)

Another neat thing - if you open the cart link in Safari, one of the payment options that shows up is Apple Pay. I wonder if it can do this if you open the link in a different browser (say Chrome) but on iPhone.

Now let's look at the product page. Like you might imagine there're a lots of optimizations here.

If a size or product is not in stock, FashionNova doesn't simply tell you "too bad!" or "come back later" Instead you can quickly subscribe via email to find out when it's back in stock

Multiple elements simultaneously create a sense of urgency and speed, while assuring you that if anything goes wrong, it'll be swiftly and easily corrected.

Clicking "More payment options" brings up new payment options such as Google Pay.

They also upsell you on related products which you can add in 1 click. Ecommerce platforms such as SamCart (samcart.com) say their merchants see big conversions when they use features like 1 Click Upsells samcart.com/blog/1-click-u… and Order Bumps intercom.help/samcart/everyt…

The "Styled on Insta" section is also smart. First, it helps customers see what an item looks in real life, giving them greater purchase confidence. Plus you can actually click to purchase the OTHER items in the photo, allowing someone to cop a complete outfit with a few clicks

One more thing I noticed is how the page changes subtly depending on whether you're browsing the men's section or the women's section of the site. For eg. the language is "More Cute Stuff" on the women's page and "More Good Stuff" on the men's page.

Also when you're on a women's page there's a "Shop for your man" section (kinda heteronormative, but ok 🙃) while there's no equivalent on men's pages. I suspect the majority of shoppers on the site are women, which is likely cos menswear launched mid 2018 thefader.com/2018/06/11/fas…

K I'm going to stop because my fingers are hurting 😄 To be clear I'm not saying FashionNova is the only (or first) store to implement many of these ideas. It's just the first time I'm seeing them all in one place, and it feels like the team put a ton of work into optimizations

Cardi B's collection did over $1 million in sales in 1 day refinery29.com/en-us/2019/05/… While a lot of that undoubtedly has to do with Cardi's star power, I suspect that FashionNova's growth-optimized store played a role as well