About Violet Grey
Violet Grey, a luxury beauty and wellness retailer based in Los Angeles, has always taken a unique approach to its industry: “we’re just as much editorial as eCommerce,” says Site Merchandiser Karla Quintero. Among the brand’s notable content franchises is “What’s in Their Bag,” which provides an inside look at the toolkits of high-profile hair & makeup artists, estheticians, and influencers.
In addition to its focus on industry trends, Violet Grey is committed to delivering unrivaled quality to its customers: every single product is vetted and tested by a community of experts according to the brand’s “Violet Code,” and must receive a 70% approval rating to be featured.
As founder and CCO Cassandra Grey explains, “We don’t sell every single SKU from every brand we carry, because not every single SKU is amazing.” In addition to its more expensive legacy brands, the brand aims to offer a variety of independent labels and even high-quality drugstore products at more accessible prices.
The Challenge
Violet Grey has long been in the business of self-care, but in recent years the brand has begun to notice a shift in the conversation. As more and more Youtube influencers and DIY bloggers emerged in the beauty & wellness space, consumers were beginning to invest in skincare from an earlier age.
“We did a bit of research into who was shopping our edits, and we saw that while our main customer was who you’d expect—women in their mid- to late forties and fifties—we were very surprised to see that the second largest customer set was younger,” Quintero says.
The Solution
In light of this promising finding, Violet Grey faced a new challenge: how to make its higher end brands accessible to younger consumers eager to invest in the right products.
“We started seeing a lot of our competitors and brand partners implementing Zip, and saw it as a great opportunity to speak to a new demographic that we hadn’t been reaching before,” says Quintero.
Violet Grey integrated with Zip on its Spree eCommerce platform in December 2018, and it’s been smooth sailing ever since. Quintero gushes, “The checkout process is seamless on both desktop and mobile—I personally use it to make purchases on a regular basis!”
The Results
Since the integration, Violet Grey has seen a significant lift in customer purchasing behavior: average order value has increased by 30%, and Zip sales account for 12% of the company’s total transactions. While the brand already boasts high customer loyalty, with a 25% overall customer repeat rate, the repeat customer rate among Zip users comes in at a sky high 40%.
“Zip has been a great partner and proven very effective in terms of our target revenue goals and acquisition goals,” says Quintero.
“We’ve been super appreciative to be kept in the loop on co-branded promotional opportunities. For key retail holidays like Mother’s Day and Memorial Day, we’ve always felt included in the conversation.”
Karla Quintero, Site Merchandiser
The brand is particularly excited by the new customer acquisition potential that’s come from the partnership. The median age among Zip users is under 40, which is significantly younger than that of the average Violet Grey customer—an indication that the availability of buy now, pay later is helping to attract the brand’s coveted younger demographic.
In addition to the lift across key metrics, Violet Grey has benefitted from an attentive, highly communicative relationship with the Zip team. Quintero specifically cites the effort that the team has made to increase exposure for the Violet Grey brand among Zip’s established community of shoppers.
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