Straight to the point
The apparel retail chain Riachuelo, one of the largest in Brazil, launched its e-commerce in 2017. The development took place in partnership with Magento under the design and implementation of the North American agency Corra, with an investment of 28 million reals and more than 30 suppliers were involved.
In order for the project to come to life, Riachuelo carried out a detailed two-year study to prepare for the new competitive environment and, especially, to adapt the new dynamics of e-commerce to its logistical and business structures.
For starters, the brand used the omnichannel strategy, which is based on offering a unified shopping experience across different channels. This means an integration of processes so that, when making a purchase in the physical store, the customer can request exchanges digitally, or pick up a piece of clothing purchased through e-commerce personally.
In addition, Riachuelo’s e-commerce interface was launched with several functionalities, such as proposals for combining outfits, a personalized product search system and navigation divided by category, product and style.
To add to all these features, Sizebay’s Size & Fit Advisor is there to offer consumers a more complete shopping experience.
What exactly led the brand to understand the need to offer the Size & Fit Advisor to improve the experience on the platform? We’ll tell you!
Noticeable needs in Riachuelo’s e-Commerce planning
The agility in production and the speed in the distribution of products are the factors that guarantee Riachuelo their position as the largest fashion company in Brazil and a reference in the fast fashion sector.
In order to be able to defend this position in e-commerce, it is crucial that the company focuses on optimizing the main e-commerce rates. One of the main concerns is the return rates, which need to be kept low to avoid the mismatch between the launches of new collections and the reverse logistics for exchanging/returning products.
Another point identified as critical in e-commerce planning was the challenge of managing measurement tables for thousands of products in a satisfactory manner. As we have already described in this blog-post, the standard of product sizes in Brazil are quite different depending on the production model, and customers shouldnt suffer the consequences of the confusion generated by the variations in sizes.
Another concern that was present from the beginning was the need to offer a way to “try on” the clothes as an online experience similar to what happens in physical stores.
In person, people bring different clothes to try on in the dressing room, but how could we reproduce this in the digital navigation in an agile, personalized experience that increases buyers’ confidence?Those reasons are what made Riachuelo one of the first stores to have embraced the Size & Fit Advisor and Measurement Table services developed by Sizebay.
What was the experience of implementing the project?
The implementation of the Size & Fit Advisor for Riachuelo required working together so that the tool could meet the brand’s expectations and bring an experience that matches the entire needs of the brand.
In addition to the Size & Fit Advisor, customers can also count on the support of Measurement Tables to better understand the measurements of the products, which ensures greater assertiveness when making purchases.
“From the moment we started looking for a virtual fitting room solution for our online store, Sizebay immediately stood out for the work carried out in adapting to the body pattern of Brazilians. The implementation also proved to be extremely simple, with a very high level of flexibility and dedication on the part of the company, and for that we have a lot to thank them for.”
DOUGLAS DE SANTI – Gerente de UX na Riachuelo (RCHLO)
Riachuelo’s Size & Fit Advisor: Results after a few months of implementation
After implementing the solution for Riachuelo’s e-commerce, Sizebay analyzed the results and noticed an excellent performance in the main e-commerce metrics.
Riachuelo’s e-commerce : First year results
According to an article by Fashion Network, in 2016 Riachuelo had already presented a good development in the main sales metrics, with a 29.6% increase in their fourth quarter net income, totaling 327 million reals.
In the year 2017, it was possible to observe an increase of 79.6%, when the billing reached 570.3 million reals, with the consolidated gross margin of goods presenting an increase of 1.9 percentage points. And, according to the group, the amazing results obtained during the year are due to the increase in sales made in their e-commerce.
One of the decisive factors for the success of this project, certainly, is the chain’s commitment to recognize the importance of prioritizing the customer experience in e-commerce and that investing in tools that improve the experience is strategic for billing.
What do Riachuelo customers have to say about the Size & Fit Advisor?
Analyzing performance data is important but so is being able to observe the real opinion of the brand’s customers about their experience with the tool.
In terms of keeping up with the branding of the brand, the team at Riachuelo does it incredibly well. Their team is always very attentive to all their customers’ opinions about the usability of the platform.
This ensures that the team can act preventively on complaints, in addition to ensuring the best shopping experience in cases where anomalies are identified.
We were very happy to be able to follow the feedback about the Size & Fit Advisor and see the difference that the tool makes in the customers purchasing journey.
Observing testimonials like this fill us with pride and prove that it is worth investing in offering a tool that makes the customer experience safer and more transparent!
