To gain an edge in the increasingly tough fashion market, New Look as implemented social proof messaging at checkout to drive incremental sales and has achieved a 1.58% uplift in conversion, equating to £23,000 in additional revenue.
New Look has been using social proof messaging from Taggstar on its PLP and PDP since 2020 but wanted to test its effectiveness on the basket page to help to reduce basket abandonment, increase conversion at this critical point in the customer journey and in consideration of a full-funnel rollout of the technology.
It’s just the latest in optimisation tests for the fashion retailer which this year rolled out seasonal-based social proof messaging for key events throughout 2022. This involved the addition of fun, themed designs, icons and animations to messages during key events, which was introduced after a successful trial last Christmas.
International fashion retailer New Look started as a business with a single store in Taunton in the UK but today comprises 440 stores across the UK and ROI. It also sells online to customers in 53 countries, with clothing ranges for women, men, maternity, plus size and teenagers. New Look has the second biggest market share for womenswear in the 18-44 year age range, according to data from Kantar Worldpanel.
More than 800 new products are added online every week, meaning there’s always something new for its customers to see. The brand also has a strong social media presence with more than six million followers across its social accounts and more than 238 million visits to the company’s website or app in 2022.
The challenge
Social proof messaging works to engage customers at all stages of the customer journey by helping better guide consumers to purchase. But it can be particularly beneficial at the basket stage where it can help to reduce basket abandonment and prompt hesitant consumers to buy when items are lingering in their basket.
Having previously focused its social proof messaging efforts on the PDP and PLP, New Look wanted to see the impact of social proof on the basket page to ensure that was delivering a better digital customer experience across the full site.
New Look and Taggstar ran a nine-day optimisation test in August 2022. The test compared social proof messages on the PLP and PDP versus social proof messages on PLP, PDP and basket page.
Five message types from Taggstar were tested on New Look’s basket page. These included ‘Purchased X minutes ago’, ‘Selling Fast! X sold recently’ and ‘Don’t Miss Out! X sold recently’.
The results
The nine-day test led to 1,030 incremental orders, a 1.58% conversion rate uplift and £23,000 in additional revenue. This equated to an ROI of 182%.
Following the success of the A/B test, which showed social proof messaging to 50% of customers visiting the website on the basket page, New Look has now rolled this out to 100% of visitors. The company is also continuing to add seasonal designs to its messaging. After first testing season-themed designs during Christmas 2021 the company’s current social proof messaging is Halloween-based with Christmas-themed messaging to go live later this year.
Rachel Troke, Senior Product Manager at New Look, says: “The addition of seasonal designs to our social proof messaging continues to resonate strongly with our customers, and results in strong uplifts in conversion rates and sales as a result. We are pleased to see that the strategy also works well on the basket page, helping us to offer a full-funnel, consistent digital experience for our customers wherever they are in the customer journey.”
Peter Buckley, CRO at Taggstar, adds: “New Look shares our philosophy that constant optimisation of social proof messaging is what helps to deliver great results. They have not only embraced the concept of seasonal designs on their social proof messaging but also now extended social proof messages to their basket page.”
