To Paula Labra, founder of Love Lust, selling underwear online has not been an easy journey. Today, the store has grown to more than US$400,000 in revenue every year.
It was a trip to New York that Paula, a photographer, bought women's lingerie to resell in Chile. Soon, she noticed a gap in the market where the models were all petite: "there was no room for different bodies". Motivated by empowering ordinary women the power of looking and feeling good in their skin, she decided to dedicate her life to this project that started as a complementary business. Today, Paula has more than an online store. Love Lust has become a community. "It's the medium to transmit a message. As a woman, there's nothing wrong with your body and how it looks. The problem is the market that doesn't make enough effort to make you feel comfortable in your own body" says Paula.
It was in 2013 that Paula decided to go online, without having the knowledge to do so. First five years were difficult and the brand was not growing and Paula was seriously considering closing down the store. By then, she had met the community of other Shopify entrepreneurs and Haciéndola, a Shopify digital agency. Paula migrated her business to Shopify and the community supported her with good advice and best practices to grow Love Lust. Things slowly began to change.
A challenge I'll always face is that people are reluctant to buy underwear online. [But] now, I'm very motivated and I love to be able to motivate others.
One of the recommendations Paula received from Shopify's community was DataCue. It was presented as a tool for conversion optimization which shows each website visitor the content they are most interested in. Paula thought it was interesting, both for the possibility of improving conversion and the fact that it just works automatically.
I love to have automated processes on my website, and I love technology. DataCue is much smarter than other apps. It's based on my visitors' preferences.
DataCue shows each visitor content based on their preferences. This personalization of the website starts at the beginning of customer's purchase journey—the homepage. Paula's photography skill came in handy. She took photos of the models herself and these photos are also used as banners on her website. These images change constantly depending on each visitor's interests. This way, someone looking for Babydolls will see different images than someone interested in Accesories.
Product pages also show different products depending on the user's interests. The tool does not only remember which products each visitor has seen before, but also recommends different products that are similar or complementary to the ones they looked for.
To measure DataCue's effectiveness, we took data from a period of two weeks when DataCue was deactivated and compared the results to two weeks prior with DataCue. This is a normal period without special e-commerce events.
During the period without DataCue, there was a strong investment in marketing efforts. This effort resulted in 46% increase in traffic, but only 2% increase in sales. Most noticeably, conversion rate went down by 27% without DataCue. Differences in conversion rate are higher when excluding Facebook sessions and when considering direct sessions only.
Besides numbers, Paula noticed an improvement in overall user experience when interacting with her clients and visitors.
When something is not working, I'd know it immediately. I always answer questions. Obviously, something is working since we installed DataCue.
Paula has accomplished the mission to sustain Love Lust online, and they keep growing every month. With the tools Love Lust has, the community that supports them, and Paula's photography skills, she's continuing an important mission that started from selling lingerie.
It is not yet over. Paula will not rest until she has all different sizes available to all women in her store. For her, it's definitely not an option that an XS size woman has 50 models to choose, and a 3XL woman has to 2. This won't happen in Love Lust. We know she'll make it possible, and we're happy to support the mission of giving each woman a unique experience in her store.
We're selling more online because we have different sizes available, and just for the fact that we show them. There might be a woman looking at the pictures, thinking "Oh, I look like her. This may fit me". Giving people an opportunity to feel that they belong is a greatest gift of all. And so far, nobody has done it before.
DataCue creates personalized experiences for your customers across your website and email.
