With over 50 years of experience in retail and operating HOPE, HOPE Resort, and Bonjour Lingerie, Grupo HOPE leads the Brazilian underwear market. The women’s fashion brand, which has had personalities such as Gisele Bündchen as protagonists of iconic campaigns, has innovation in its DNA. It was the first company to advertise their products on Brazilian television in 1985, and was a forerunner of digital retail in the country, joining the ecommerce universe in 2006.
Grupo HOPE’s creative side was essential for the company’s strong performance during the pandemic: the closure of their distribution center in Maranguape, in the Brazilian state of Ceará, as well as the closure of physical stores in major urban centers, and the retraction of logistics networks were some of the challenges the company faced last year. However, HOPE’s professional talent and digital strategy allowed them to transform difficulties into growth opportunities. Digitalization further improved with an enhanced sales application and the inventory redirection in physical stores, which started to function as local distribution centers for ecommerce.
Implementation and challenges
The most significant difference behind the decision to migrate the ecommerce platform to VTEX was the possibility of natively serving Grupo HOPE’s omnichannel strategy.
With the closure of almost all of their over 200 physical stores during the COVID-19 pandemic, the need for an ecommerce solution that would enable the integration of the distribution center and physical stores’ inventories became evident. Furthermore, this solution would allow the dispatch and removal of local inventory (ship-from-store and pick-up-in-store) from the stores themselves. In order to avoid stockouts and ensure inventory turnover in closed stores, the company sought an efficient UX and a competitive SLA.
VTEX’s extensive experience with omnichannel solutions, such as the Grupo Soma operation, a successful case in the national market, provided the authority and confidence to establish the partnership and start the implementation, which took approximately three months.
HOPE was also attracted by VTEX’s broad variety of omnichannel features, including live shopping (a live sales strategy involving social media streams) as well as customizable tools derived from VTEX IO. With live streaming, Grupo HOPE will expand its presence on social networks and strategically use sales teams in physical stores to generate online sales while offering a real-time shopping experience.
Also, while implementing the VTEX platform, Grupo HOPE kicked off with Insider in October 2020. With the optimization of sales potential, end-to-end analysis of the digital funnel of HOPE and HOPE Resort was made from page traffic, considering metrics like bounce and exit rates, device types, and access frequency to conversion. From this analysis, Insider identified critical areas of improvement.
The brands’ main pains were conversion and retention, user engagement on pages, add-to-cart rate, and revenue. Through its machine learning technology and AI, Insider was able to map the behavior of these users in the funnel from start to end, focusing on Grupo HOPE’s performance and main goals.
HOPE’s strategy also highlighted a Hello Bar. This customized bar can be segmented by user profile, enabling a customized message that encourages users to return to the cart when leaving a product and returning to the Home Page.
It’s also possible to generate segmented messages, as was done for the “Quinzena do Sutiã”(translated as “Bra Fortnight”) campaign. The hello bar was visible at the checkout for the promotional products. HOPE informed the user about the discount or cashback. Another solution with positive ROI is Pre-Select Size, which identifies users who have already made purchases on the website and brings an automatic selection of the size of the previously purchased product. Together, these tools have enabled automation for campaigns that previously required manual work and in-house development.
Web push solutions play an essential role in reaching users who have visited product pages or added items to their cart and left the page without engaging or purchasing. Mass web push campaigns to promote launches and discounts were also created for the entire database and represented a significant amount in conversions. The WhatsApp solution is also on the roadmap to further foster growing results and create an innovative experience.
Initial results and next steps
Grupo HOPE expands the omnichannel model to its physical stores and its presence in digital retail. The results obtained are positive, surpassing previous years’ expectations and even the expectations outlined for a year of instability in the national scenario.
A few months after integrating Insider and VTEX, it was possible to see a higher ROI and increased sales performance. As a result, both companies have jointly developed a strategic partnership, cooperating for the digital development and continuous improvement of the integration between their SaaS platforms.
As a strategy for the upcoming months, the brand intends to focus on two verticals: social networks and omnichannel.
The first will highlight expanding the brand’s reach on social networks, enhancing its live shopping strategy, and capitalizing on the Group’s past experiences, including the famous singer Anitta and salespeople in physical stores. The second will prioritize the engagement and adaptation of the franchisee network to the omnichannel project, allowing for a further reduction in delivery time and costs. In addition, Insider cooperates with geolocation-based solutions, offering product recommendations according to climate and region.
Together, Grupo HOPE, VTEX, and Insider have redefined the limits of ecommerce in Brazil. Even though the scenario is challenging, the innovative vision of the partnership allows the customer experience to be increasingly personalized, elevating Grupo HOPE, whose legacy is part of the tradition of Brazilian retail.
