[Step by Step] What Role Does a Tech Stack Play in Customer Retention? feat. Alida Sholl, Director of Operations at Rep Fitness

Future Commerce Podcast: eCommerce, DTC and Retail Strategy

Main Takeaways:

• Brian and Phillip are joined in this episode of Step by Step by Alida Sholl, the Director of Operations at Rep Fitness.
• Rep has tackled the unique challenges of setting up a warehouse for larger than average products and has perfected processes to handle these items.
• What are some tools that your brand can leverage to better your customers' post-purchase experience?
• Arming your customers with knowledge and guiding them through the purchase process not only builds their trust of your brand but encourages them to be repeat customers.

A Little Bit About Rep Fitness: And A Little Bit About Alida:

• Rep Fitness is a complete fitness supplier that sells anything from pull-up bands to high-end power racks and all the weights that come along with that.
• Alida started with Rep Fitness about two and a half years ago when she found out about the local equipment company when she moved to Denver; she reached out to see if they needed any help, and Rep Fitness just happened to have a position that was a fit.
• Without a background in eCommerce, Alida started her career in manufacturing with a focus on process engineering.
• Rep Fitness was preparing to move into a new warehouse, a task for which Alida was uniquely qualified.

Larger Than the Average Product: Warehouse Setup Challenges:

• With products that are larger than average, what are some of the specific challenges when it comes to setting up a warehouse?
• With items that require a lot of space, Rep Fitness relies on palette racking and a large floor stack area to meet its warehouse space requirements.
• Rep Fitness sorts and labels everything in the dock area, so they also need a dock area that is larger than average to accommodate those needs.
• When boxes can weigh up to 100 pounds, it is best to avoid any extra touches and make the shipping process as simple as possible.

Diving Deeper: Who Is the Rep Fitness Customer?:

• The idea of a home gym does not have to be a big garage, so ideally, anyone can be a rep fitness customer.
• The majority of Rep's customers are somewhere between the ages of 25 and 44, typically married, own a home, and a lot of them are parents.
• Giving people the option to regain their freedom and live active and healthy lives without being tied to an external gym is one of Rep's goals.
• It is becoming much more common to be fit and lead a healthy life, which Rep is allowing parents to demonstrate for their children and lead by example.

Putting the Gears in Motion: What Happens Post-Purchase?

• Rep has a fantastic customer service and sales team that all personally know the equipment to give customers the best experience possible when purchasing.
• Having a real human touch and a sales and service team that go above and beyond to make genuine connections with customers makes those customers feel welcomed to the Rep family.
• Rep Fitness will soon be launching chat on its website that will enable customers to get their questions answered on the spot and eliminate the need to leave the site.
• Already using Help Scout for all of their email requirements, it was a natural choice for Rep Fitness to choose to implement Help Scout's chat capabilities.

Bringing Them Back: Capturing Trends:

• Most home gym owners will say that their home gym is never done, so they are always looking for new equipment to add.
• Consistently creating new products that are items that everyone needs to have is a great way to ensure repeat business.
• Customers like trendy things even in a space where there are tried and true methods along with more traditional clear paths to success.
• When you are in a community-centric space, if members are using a particular product, then others in the community are more willing to want that product.

How To Earn Return Customers: Trials and Challenges:

• Digitally marketing can play a significant role in capturing repeat business.
• Remarketing email campaigns can be sent to customers that have not engaged with your content or made a purchase for a while.
• There is a vast online community in the home gym space, and amongst that community are bloggers that are regularly reviewing products and boosting product awareness.
• Rep keeps their product line broad so that customers can return and complete their home gym and supplement their fitness journeys with other Rep products.

Leveraging Social Proof: Harnessing Customer Created Content:

• Rep has used Yotpo for all of the reviews on its site for a long time and has just recently started using Yotpo's digital marketing suite.
• Yotpo's digital marketing suite allows Rep to pull in content from social media and display it on the homepage and product pages.
• Customers want to see not only the studio images of products but also what that product looks likes in the homes of consumers like themselves.
• Rep likes highlighting their customers, and the best influencers are customers that posting things about your brand, unprompted, that others can believe and trust.

Designing the Customer Journey: Deciding Where Your Customers Go:

• Rep's site does not follow a cookie-cutter eCommerce model and takes its customers on a tailored purchase journey when buying products.
• How do you decide what the best path to purchase will be for your customers?
• There are two very different types of shoppers that Rep caters to along the path to purchase: those who like premade packages of products, and those who want to customize what they are buying.
• Guided selling that empowers customers to find the options that they need gives them precisely what they want and makes your customers happy.
• Post-purchase is often determined by upfront education and guidance.

What's Next for Rep Fitness: A Look at the Roadmap:

• Rep is starting to dig into data and to find ways to track and leverage the data they collect in more effective ways.
• Using Brightpearl, along with other analytics tools, will inform rep and guide them to make better decisions when it comes to reaching their customers.
• Rep is retroactively going through all of their processes to make sure they are capturing actionable data.
• Another goal is to get a full handle on return rates by finding better ways to track return information and finding ways to minimize returns.
• Rep will also be migrating their website to a new platform, which will allow them to dig into how the site functions.

Brands Mentioned in this Episode:

• Rep Fitness
• Help Scout
• Yotpo
• Brightpearl

As always: We want to hear what our listeners think! What are some ways that you can improve the path to purchase for your customers, and what information can you give them to educate them around your products?

Let us know in the content section on Futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or Linkedin.

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