Case Studies
How Concrete Jungle Grew into Ecommerce from Manufacturing
March 24, 2021
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18 mins interview
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For Australian fashion label Apéro, creating a loyal customer base was always a key part of its growth strategy, and they recently turned to REVIEWS.io to help them get there.
Mirroring timeless French fashion, Apéro’s pieces are chic and current, but designed to last. Their focus is on creating ‘day to night’ fashion pieces that can be styled casually, or dressed up for special occasions.
At the heart of the brand is a continuous commitment to giving back to the community by supporting charities, empowering women and promoting kindness, joy, and mindfulness. The Apéro style is designed with a purpose: to be beautifully unique, empower women and embody the Apéro way of life.
We are not a fast fashion label. We believe in timeless fashion and always have our eye on sustainability and longevity with our designs.
Laz Smith, General Manager and Co-Founder,
Apéro
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In keeping with this commitment to enduring quality, Apéro’s aim has always been to create a loyal customer base which loves the brand and will continue to do so for generations.
However, because we are sometimes mistaken for being a fast fashion label and we’re often playing in the same space as fast fashion brands, it’s important that we offer some additional incentives for our customers
Recognising this need for a proven and robust rewards and loyalty program, Apéro recently chose to use Smile.io as the basis for its Apéro Spritz Club. As an existing REVIEWS.io customer, choosing Smile.io – which offers seamless integration – was the logical choice.
Our aim is to create an environment, through our website and supporting platforms, that encourages people to stay loyal with us as a brand. A big key for us in this space has been investing in a rewards/loyalty program which focuses on driving repeat purchasing.
I’d say loyalty and rewards are more important than discounting. If you can successfully build a brand loyalty program that truly gives value to customers, it drives your lifetime value up and increases your profitability, whereas discounts are a way of sacrificing margin to try and convince people to shop with you. While discounts may get people through the door, rewards really build an ongoing relationship.
Evoking all of the joy of long summer evenings in Europe, the Apéro Spritz Club is the brand’s way of rewarding and incentivising anyone who chooses to register their details and shop with them.
Every time this registered customer makes an online purchase, gives the brand a follow on social media, writes a review, or convinces a friend to make a purchase, they can earn points that go towards discounts on future purchases.
We reward customers at every step of the way - for leaving a review, following our social media channels, referring a friend, having a birthday, the list goes on.
We want to reward our customers for continuing to shop with us by giving them points for these actions, which they can in turn redeem for either dollar value discounts or things like free express shipping, and even products.
For Apéro, the entire process is completely automated and streamlined; underpinned by both the Smile.io and REVIEWS.io and platforms.
As the two engines are seamlessly integrated, customer reviews can also be used as part of the loyalty program.
Apéro weren’t leveraging user generated content specifically until very recently, but they definitely found that rewarding their customers for sharing their feedback on products was definitely great value. It’s so valuable to get user generated content as they love sharing authentic content on our social media channels.
The fact the integration between our loyalty platform (Smile.io) and our reviews platform (REVIEWS.io) can easily set up rewards for customers sharing photos and videos makes it VERY easy for us to use this as an ongoing strategy.
Apéro estimates that implementing Smile.io has generated $68,000 in revenue for the business in just 12 months. In this time, the program has issued 2,117 rewards and program membership has increased to 5,758 people.
When measuring loyalty, we specifically look at our returning customer rate and also things like lifetime value of a customer, over a 90-day period, for instance. We see these metrics as the most accurate way of seeing the health of our relationship with our customers.
It helps them to determine if they’re really on board with us as a brand, or whether we’re really nothing more than a one-hit-wonder.
Apéro deliver outstanding customer service through providing rewards to customers who leave their feedback on products, to not only ensure their brand can be trusted by new customers but also retain existing consumers through brand loyalty. Brands like Apéro do everything they can to target their customers needs by forming good customer relationships through trust, loyalty and communication.
