FlyPolar Uses AI to Increase Conversion Rates

FlyPolar is a fast-growing e-commerce fashion brand specializing in “hip, comfortable, casual wear.” The retailer has opened physical locations across the U.S. after graduating from a single outlet store in Ohio. Yet FlyPolar maintains a strong online presence, with the majority of its sales coming from its website.

“Most of our customers are men and women between the ages of 18-32 who typically become aware of our brand through our Facebook campaigns,” explains Shawn Broadus, CEO of FlyPolar. “Our shoppers grew up in the digital age, so engaging shopping experiences are essential.”

FlyPolar's online sales, however, hit a downturn this summer. The retailer went from about $277,000 in web sales in February to only about $50,000 in July.

“We thought it could be a seasonal trend and tried a number of things, including a website redesign and new offers,” says Broadus. “Once these proved ineffective, we looked to a conversion specialist who could help.”

FlyPolar wanted to continue its e-commerce growth, especially with the busy holiday season quickly approaching. The retailer decided to partner with Condorly, a digital marketing agency, to help it address its slumping online sales.

Simple, But Hard to Gauge Fixes
FlyPolar’s simplest fixes were spread out over four different web pages in the checkout funnel. However, most optimization tools can’t handle multipage testing because with different variables on different pages, it can be hard to figure out which changes are actually working and which aren’t.

To help with multivariate testing, Condorly recommended Sentient Ascend, a new platform that leverages the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to enable rapid and comprehensive website conversion rate optimization. Sentient Ascend, launched by the original creators of Apple’s Siri at Sentient Technologies, tests more than just A and B, so it’s able to find the combination of variables that will provide the most uplift — whether they're on one web page or spread out across a few.

Key changes made to FlyPolar’s website include the following:

• adding a "Continue Shopping" button to the cart page;
• adding a "Continue Shopping" button to the cart modal; and
• moving "Proceed to Checkout" up on the cart page.

Together, these changes resulted in the following:

• a 16 percent increase in traffic to the checkout page in three weeks; and
• a 13 percent increase in average order value in three weeks.

FlyPolar’s Future With AI
Now that FlyPolar's site visitors are adding more items to their carts and more frequently proceeding to the checkout page, the retailer's next goal is to get more of them to actually complete the checkout process. To do this, Condorly’s CEO Peter Brown says FlyPolar will concentrate on providing customers “an easy experience and an environment which breeds confidence and trust.”

“The more personal a shopping experience can be, the better the results will be for the retailer,” explains Brown. “AI can also make shopping more efficient for both customer and retailer — saving time for the customer and allowing the retailer to make better merchandising decisions, thereby increasing revenues and saving costs as well.”