How Arbor Made Leveraged Shopify Plus & Checkout CRO to Increase Conversion Rate to 65% and Generate Additional Revenue
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Arbor Made is a Michigan-based sustainable candle brand founded in 2020 by Lindsay and Nate. Frustrated by the wastefulness of traditional candles, they pioneered a refillable candle vessel with a patented silicone base, making it reusable and eco-friendly.Ā
Post-launch, Arbor Made quickly gained traction, selling out its first batch and earning viral social media attention. Consistently walking their talk has led the brand to quickly position itself as an eco-conscious market leader in the home & lifestyle industry.Ā
As a business, Arbor Made has always been rapidly reinventing itself and finding new avenues for growth. One specific challenge the company faced was increasing upsell and cross-sell revenue. They seemed to have exhausted their options on their Shopify store.Ā
However, during a checkout audit by the Checkout Wiz team at Skai Lama, it became clear that:
Arbor Madeās checkout held untapped potential as a powerful revenue driver.
Further optimizing their conversion rate could unlock significant revenue growth
Basis this Arbor Made made some key shifts in its checkout strategy. This resulted in a conversion rate bump from 56% to 65%. The brand also generated incremental revenue of $ 66000 within 1.5 months.Ā
So, what did they do and how? Letās take a look.
Arbor Made is a Michigan-based sustainable candle brand founded in 2020 by Lindsay and Nate. Frustrated by the wastefulness of traditional candles, they pioneered a refillable candle vessel with a patented silicone base, making it reusable and eco-friendly.Ā
Post-launch, Arbor Made quickly gained traction, selling out its first batch and earning viral social media attention. Consistently walking their talk has led the brand to quickly position itself as an eco-conscious market leader in the home & lifestyle industry.Ā
As a business, Arbor Made has always been rapidly reinventing itself and finding new avenues for growth. One specific challenge the company faced was increasing upsell and cross-sell revenue. They seemed to have exhausted their options on their Shopify store.Ā
However, during a checkout audit by the Checkout Wiz team at Skai Lama, it became clear that:
Arbor Madeās checkout held untapped potential as a powerful revenue driver.
Further optimizing their conversion rate could unlock significant revenue growth
Basis this Arbor Made made some key shifts in its checkout strategy. This resulted in a conversion rate bump from 56% to 65%. The brand also generated incremental revenue of $ 66000 within 1.5 months.Ā
So, what did they do and how? Letās take a look.
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How Arbor Made Leveraged Shopify Plus & Checkout CRO to Increase Conversion Rate to 65% and Generate Additional Revenue
Arbor Made is a Michigan-based sustainable candle brand founded in 2020 by Lindsay and Nate. Frustrated by the wastefulness of traditional candles, they pioneered a refillable candle vessel with a patented silicone base, making it reusable and eco-friendly.Ā
Post-launch, Arbor Made quickly gained traction, selling out its first batch and earning viral social media attention. Consistently walking their talk has led the brand to quickly position itself as an eco-conscious market leader in the home & lifestyle industry.Ā
As a business, Arbor Made has always been rapidly reinventing itself and finding new avenues for growth. One specific challenge the company faced was increasing upsell and cross-sell revenue. They seemed to have exhausted their options on their Shopify store.Ā
However, during a checkout audit by the Checkout Wiz team at Skai Lama, it became clear that:
Arbor Madeās checkout held untapped potential as a powerful revenue driver.
Further optimizing their conversion rate could unlock significant revenue growth
Basis this Arbor Made made some key shifts in its checkout strategy. This resulted in a conversion rate bump from 56% to 65%. The brand also generated incremental revenue of $ 66000 within 1.5 months.Ā
So, what did they do and how? Letās take a look.
Challenges
Exhausted Upsell Opportunities
Arbor Made while in the upsell game early on, had exhausted its opportunities. They had tried and succeeded at product bundles and product recommendations throughout their website. But what next? How could they further maximize their returns on every customer they acquired? How could they generate more average order value (AOV)?Ā
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Narrowing Down on an Upsell Strategy
While checkout was soon identified as an upsell opportunity, the roadmap was unclear. Arbor Made wanted to select the right upsell products. They didnt overwhelm users at checkout in a way that they exited the checkout flow. But how could they pick the right upsell product?Ā
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Checkout Conversion Rate
While Arbor Made had a decent checkout conversion rate of 56%, it also meant a lost opportunity with 44% of customers who arrived at checkout. A quick audit revealed that key checkout elements reduced buyer objection such as trust badges, social proof, reviews, etc. were missing.Ā
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Limitations of Shopify BasicĀ
Arbor Made was on the Shopify Basic plan. This prevented them from leveraging the benefits of Shopify extensions and using an app like Checkout Wiz to its full potential. To create checkout upsells and optimize their checkout impactfully they needed to move to Shopify Plus.Ā
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The Arbor Club- Membership ProgramĀ
Arbor Made had a membership program targeted at customer retention. For an annual membership fee, customers got store credits, site-wide discounts, early access & more. The brand was trying to grow this membership base.
Solutions
By now, the untapped opportunities within Arbor Made's checkout were clear. Keeping this in mind, the following solutions were implemented:
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Upgrade to Shopify PlusĀ
Unlocking the full potential of checkout optimization requires a store to be on the Shopify Plus plan, enabling access to Shopifyās Checkout Extensions. Incidentally, Shopify was during the time, offering Shopify Plus at a discounted price of $399 for a two-month trial.Ā Ā
Recognizing this opportunity, the Checkout Wiz team persuaded Arbor Made to take the leap and offered to cover the Shopify Plus fee for the initial periodā till they saw results. This decisive move marked the first step toward transforming Arbor Made's checkout experience.
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Strategic Checkout Upsells
The teams collaborated to formulate their checkout strategy, narrowing their focus to four key approaches:
Cross-sell lower-ticket items directly at checkout to boost immediate cart value.Ā
Upsell refillable jars to move jar inventoryĀ
Cross-sell shipping protectionĀ
Upsell the Arbor Made membership, creating a pathway for long-term customer engagement.
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Discounted Post-Purchase Upsells
Arbor Made also leveraged their post checkout pages i.e. the thank you and order status pages. Their approach was to cross-sell refillable jars at a special post-purchase discount.Ā
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A/B Test & OptimizeĀ Ā
A key challenge was deciding the upsell product and upsell offer.Ā Arbor Made ran carefully designed A/B tests with the help of the Checkout Wiz team. Some of them were:
A/B testing between refillable jars & low-ticket items at checkout
A/B testing between different discount percentages for refillable jars upsells post-purchase
A/B testing design and layout of their membership upsell blockĀ
They further closely compared conversion rates on upsells during and after post-checkout. This was used to judge the best location for a particular upsell item.Ā
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Reinforcing Trust with Checkout Design Elements
Arbor Made found that there was a significant drop-off in new customers at checkout. It was hypothesized these new customers were unsure of the brand and its credibility. To counter this, Arbor Made:Ā
Introduced trust badges on the checkout page. These illustrated the non-toxic, cruelty-free, and natural nature of its products
Displayed reviews and ratings. A 4.5/5 rating by 400+ customers bumped up the brandās credibility perception. So did the fact that over 10,000 customers had purchased Arbor Made products.
Displayed 90-day return policy. This helped eliminate last-minute purchase objections. It reassured customers of their purchase.Ā
Results
Arbor Madeās strategy to overhaul its checkout page paid off. The tweaks enabled by Shopify Plus and Checkout Wiz, led to an increase in key checkout metrics and the business revenue. Letās take a look.Ā
1. Increase in Conversion Rate by 16%.Ā
Arbor Madeās checkout optimization translated into an impressive bump in their checkout conversion rateā from 56% to 65%. This is the impact of a complete checkout replete with elements that reduce last-minute purchase objections and assure customers of their decision.Ā
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2. $60,000 Revenue Growth due to Higher Conversion Rates
The increased conversion rate meant more orders for Arbor Made. The growth in orders translated to an additional revenue ofĀ $60,000 during the first month of this project.Ā
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3. $6000 Extra Revenue from Checkout & Post-Purchase UpsellsĀ
Arbor Made generated additional revenue of $6000 from carefully A/B tested checkout and post-checkout upsells in their first month. Interestingly post-checkout upsells performed better for the brand.Ā
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4. 10 New Members Added to Arbor Club
Arbor Made was struggling with stagnant membership numbers. Their attempt to upsell membership at checkout resulted in 10 new members being added to Arbor Club. Thatās the highest number of new members acquired in a single month!Ā
Conclusion
Arbor Madeās openness to experiment led them on a journey to unlock their checkout capabilities. They started with taking care of essentials i.e. upgrading to Shopify Plus, installing Checkout Wiz, and jointly coming up with a plan to influence key business metrics at checkout. What did it result in? A 16% increase in conversion rate, a $60,000 increase in revenue, an extra $6000 in checkout upsell plus an increase in the membership of Arbor Club. All of this is within 1.5 months. It was a true testament to the power of checkouts to move the needle on business metrics.Ā
Want to replicate this success? Install Checkout Wiz today and start harnessing the capability of your Shopify checkout.Ā
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