American Apparel Launches New BigCommerce Site – Custom Designed for the Social Shopper in Just 3 Months

www.americanapparel.com

American Apparel Inc. is an online-only retailer and former brick-and-mortar stores operator based in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1989, the brand prides itself on its ethically made, sweat-shop free fashion. The brand, now owned by Gildan Activewear, wanted to migrate its site onto BigCommerce, as well as direct all future sales to its store on Amazon.com in order to better mesh with its end-to-end order workflow. Selling on an online marketplace via Amazon offered numerous conveniences to visitors because it eliminated the need for them to enter their shipping or payment information to complete a purchase. Visitors who are also Prime customers can take advantage of Amazon’s unique delivery perks, including free delivery, 2-day delivery, and free returns.

With a Millennial and Gen X customer base, American Apparel was keen to ensure the new site supported the key tactics of social commerce, such as promoting discovery of new items on social media and enabling customers to share photos of themselves in American Apparel garments on Instagram, Facebook, and its new BigCommerce site. The company also wanted a host of custom builds to support its merchandising strategy, including emphasizing hot selling items, new arrivals, and ensuring that when a customer clicks on a particular item from the home page, he or she arrives on a product listing page that displays the exact color and style of the item clicked.

Most important of all, however, was the accelerated timeframe. American Apparel needed its new site up and running in just three months.

OUR SOLUTION

The Silk team tapped into its deep knowledge of BigCommerce and the nuances of social commerce to migrate the American Apparel site in a short timeframe. In just three months, Silk migrated the site, built a connection to Amazon, integrated key third-party software apps, and completed UA testing. Immediately upon launch, the new site could flawlessly handle American Apparel’s 500,000+ monthly visitors.

American Apparel also leveraged Silk’s marketplace services in order to achieve its goal of processing all sales on Amazon and to streamline its end-to-end order workflow. Today, every product page includes a link to Amazon.

Additionally, Silk integrated the new site to Curalate, a tool to help shoppers discover American Apparel items on Instagram and Facebook. Now, whenever anyone — customer or influencer — posts a photo with the hashtag #AmericanApparel, Curalate detects it and posts it on the American Apparel site. The site also supports social proofing by inviting customers to upload their photos of themselves wearing American Apparel garments directly on the product listing pages. Silk also integrated Bronto, the email service American Apparel utilizes for its newsletters, as well as Shogun, the platform that supports its static landing pages for the “Meet the Fabrics” and “Meet the Models” pages.

Lastly, Silk custom developed a host of features that add up to a big impact for merchandising. For instance, because of their propensity to post selfies on social media, many Millennials are loath to be seen in the same outfit twice. A New Product tag helps these shoppers stay on top of new styles, and a Best Seller tag helps them find the hottest styles of the moment. When a style and color of an item on the homepage caches their eyes, visitors can easily click to the exact item on a product listing page.

The BigCommerce site also supports Gold Toe, a sister brand of American Apparel. Like American Apparel, Gold Toe is seamlessly connected to Amazon to streamline the order workflow and offer maximum convenience to customers.