Online sales increased by 250%, Skechers brand strategy is unique

In August 2020, American footwear retailer Skechers relaunched its website on Salesforce Commerce Cloud to create a more functional, powerful site that enables it to better leverage customer reviews to drive more sales and conversions .

Tim Lakin, e-commerce purchasing manager for Skechers USA, said that most consumers have never considered buying shoes online, so Skechers must change its strategy to give consumers confidence to buy shoes online .

Skechers focuses on customer reviews

Although Skechers, like other shoe retailers , has been affected by the epidemic and closed stores and turned to online, the way this retailer uses customer reviews to increase conversion rates is what distinguishes it from other retailers.

After Skechers upgraded its e-commerce platform in the third quarter of 2020, it focused on enhancing its product content with customer reviews at the core.

“We have an active feedback section on our website , which really helps , and a loyal fan base and tons of reviews supersedes the in-store experience, ” Lakin said .

Skechers.com has more than 340,000 product reviews, with an average star rating of 4.6 out of 5 , and more than 8,000 customer photos shared . In addition, the retailer Skechers said that in the United States, 87% of the company's products have reviews, the retailer has interacted with consumers more than 2.3 million times, and each product content has an average of 18.8 reviews.

On the new e-commerce platform, reviews play a more prominent role on Skechers.com. For example, some product detail pages now feature headlines describing the fit of the shoe, since many consumers are new to online shopping or are new to Skechers.

And Skechers sent out emails to get reviews, and Lakin said many customers were happy to talk about the shoes.

Online sales increased by 250%

At the height of the coronavirus pandemic , Skechers’ e-commerce orders grew 700% year-over-year from May to June , and the retailer attributed much of the credit to customer reviews.

While the company’s online sales have leveled off after a summer surge, its e-commerce business is still growing, rising from about 5% of total revenue to about 15% at the end of 2020. Lakin said Skechers’ ultimate goal is to have an e-commerce share of 30%.

Overall, Skechers' online sales grew 250% in 2020. In comparison, its online sales grew only 60% in 2019.

As Skechers moves into 2021, its main goals are to continue leveraging customer reviews and strengthening its product detail pages . This means adding more icons to describe shoe features and images of the products, and highlighting customer opinions.

" A really good review has a lot more credibility , " Lakin said.

Additionally, Skechers hopes to continue growing its online presence, such as by adding more online-exclusive products, hoping to capitalize on consumers' growing comfort with online shopping.

Skechers

USA

E-commerce

shoe