Dressbarn Set the Bar High: Mastering Mobile with U-Campaign [Video]

It should come as no surprise that the most successful mobile sites are flourishing because they have found a winning recipe, designing with the user experience as the driving force. This idea was exactly what Dressbarn set out to accomplish while creating Dressbar.

While not a standalone site, Dressbar is the “destination for dresses” within the overall Dressbarn experience. Paul Stonick, Senior art Director, ecommerce at Dressbarn described the Dressbar mobile experience: “When a customer is in-store and they want to shop for dresses, they will head to the Dressbar section of the store; when a customer is on her mobile device and wants to shop for dresses she will use the Dressbar experience.”

Business Goals that Drove Expansion on Mobile

Dressbarn was eager to deliver a seamless mobile experience to their customer. With a customer base that is increasingly on mobile while shopping and browsing the Dressbarn offering, the need was pressing to make the mobile experience interesting, engaging and robust. Creating a mobile site was a way for Dressbarn to stake their claim amongst their competitors such as Kohl’s, JCPenny’s, and Macy’s in becoming the destination for the dress.

Creating a great, sharable experience that not only allows users to browse product but help them to learn more about the designer is an aspect of the experience that not many brands look to achieve.  Additionally, creating the mobile site was looked at as a marketing acquisition strategy; a way to grow and expand the Dressbarn brand by targeting a new demographic -- a younger “fashion-forward, smart girl” who is both tech savvy and appreciates the designer dresses Dressbarn has to offer.  

Requirements for Success that Facilitated the Dressbar Experience

Speed to launch. Creatively customizable. Control. No heavy back-end integration. Dressbarn needed a tool with the flexibility to create a mobile experience quickly and easily, but with the ability to easily change out, and have full control over all content and assets.

U-Campaign allowed the Dressbarn creative team to be in the driver’s seat when it came time to bring the site to life. Ashley Oblinger, Visual Content Manager at Dressbarn said, “I was concepting probably within five minutes (of being introduced to the tool), and building out true, workable displays.” Key for Ashley was that he did not have to rely on his IT team for support when it came to adding the content or pushing the site live. Using the custom tiles for content gave Dressbarn the ability to launch on time while achieving their vision for the mobile site.

Creating the Perfect Balance of Content and Commerce

The online shopping experience should be an immersive and experiential experience in order to build the customer experience. As a retailer, the team at Dressbarn wanted to recreate the experience of shopping in-store on mobile. This meant designing an experience where customers would have access to a blend of products and suggestions such as shoes or jewelry, alongside editorial content from the designers who curated their outfits. The quality of the experience would drive return visits to the site.

Customer feedback after launch suggested that improvements needed to be made to shorten the purchase journey, and to make content and products more accessible on mobile. Discovering how to strike the balance between content and commerce is the key takeaway from the initial launch of the Dressbar experience.

To hear more about Dressbarn’s story, listen to the webinar recording below.