For online retailer Ties-Necktie.com, success has come in a short amount of time. Founder Hendrik Pohl listened to his customers and, even after a fantastic showing on Cyber Monday, extended the online bonanza into Cyber Tuesday.
“Our Cyber Monday promotion was a huge success,” Pohl says. “We did set a record day since we launched our website over three years ago and surpassed our previous record of number of orders by more than 20%.”
But many of Pohl’s customers missed a 24-hour promotion that was posted on the company blog as well as in a newsletter blast. “Because we received so many phone calls and emails asking us for an extension we decided to turn Cyber Monday into Cyber Tuesday,” Pohl explains.
Sales rose more than 20% year-over-year for November, Pohl says, and Cyber Monday “saw an almost 50% sales increase compared to last year. The promotion we sent last year was the same (25% off storewide) and I think this huge increase has to do with we have doubled our customer base that receives the newsletter compared to last year, and we expanded our product selection by adding tie bars, more cufflinks, pocket squares, and silk scarves.”
Pohl pointed out that the discount was the same this year, “but we improved the way we marketed the promotion. Last year we only added a banner on the home page and sent an email to every customer. This year we also announced our promotion via social networking channels (Facebook, Twitter, Stumbleupon, Digg.com, and LinkedIn). We also sent an email to a few blogs that focus on men’s fashion and we wrote a press release announcing our extended promotion.”
While Pohl didn’t make any site improvements this year, he is working on a redesign that should be completed by February.
“Our goal is to create a design that is more fashion and style oriented, yet still offers the same usability,” he says.
The tie market in the U.S. has slightly decreased, Pohl says, based on orders, but his company has noticed a large increase in international orders.
“In the U.S. there is a trend — unfortunately for us — to dress a bit more casual in business,” he says. “Because the tie business is a flat industry the only way for us to grow is to take a bigger piece of the pie by taking market share away from our competition, expand into foreign markets, improve international shipping and launch sites in foreign languages – we already do this in Europe where my father manages sites in German, French, Spanish, Dutch, and Russian. And also expand our product selection such as cufflinks, briefcases, socks, etc.
What were the biggest sellers for Pohl on Cyber Monday and Cyber Tuesday? “Our striped tie collection. Especially ties for under $15 sell extremely well right now. My guess: stocking stuffers for Christmas.”
Jim Tierney ([email protected]) is a senior writer for Multichannel Merchant. You can connect with him on Twitter (TierneyMCM) and LinkedIn, or call him at 203-358-4265.