How Sol de Janeiro Doubled Down on D2C with Yotpo

  • Industry
    Industry
    Health & Beauty - Skin Care
  • Platform
    Platform
    Shopify Plus
  • Challenge
    Challenge
    Enhance their D2C website to drive more sales and foster a customer community
  • Solution
    Solution
    Use a customer-centric marketing platform to collect & display UGC more effectively on site
  • Results
    Results
    Massive growth of eCommerce channel, with sales, orders, and profits all up, and a 58% increase in returning customers
soldejaneiro.com
In 2015, two New Yorkers living in Brazil decided to share the secrets of Brazilian beauty with the rest of the world.

Company

Award-winning body care brand Sol de Janeiro is the brainchild of Heela Yang and Marc Capra. With their “beauty is an attitude” mindset, the duo set out to create what is now their famous Brazilian Bum Bum Cream, an all-over body lotion that makes skin appear firmer.

In the past year, Sol de Janeiro decided it was time to take their customer-centric attitude a step further, and find better ways to connect directly with their community of devoted fans. To do this, they pivoted towards eCommerce, with a focus on making their D2C channel more robust.

Since the very early stages of using Yotpo we have seen very positive results. The dashboard is incredibly user-friendly, and the insights provide a clear understanding of how each feature of Yotpo adds monetary value to our business, which is very important.
Heela Yang
Heela Yang
Co-Founder & CEO
58%
Increase
In Returning Customers

Challenge

Sol de Janeiro had already established a powerful presence by selling through Sephora. Now, the company was faced with the task of building the same degree of trust, loyalty, and brand recognition on their own site, where they could develop a direct relationship with customers and boost sales.

In order to get the absolute most out of their eCommerce channel, Sol de Janeiro didn’t just need better marketing tech: they needed a true marketing tech partner. They had previously been using a basic reviews plugin, which didn’t provide any visual marketing solutions or data insights, two tools that Sol de Janeiro would need in order to take their D2C channel to the next level. Not only that, but the brand didn’t have the support of a customer success team to help maximize their results.  

Sol de Janeiro was ready to invest in a platform that not only had superior marketing technology, but also had experts who were willing and able to help them strategize about the best possible ways to use that tech.

Our eCommerce presence empowers us to tell our rich stories and to invite our customers into the world of Sol de Janeiro in a much more complete and totally immersive way. As a new brand that exploded onto the beauty scene, it is critical to complement our world class retail partners with strong digital storytelling to boost brand awareness.

Solution

Yotpo was hands-on with Sol de Janiero from the very beginning, helping the brand use the tech to its full potential. To collect more reviews and photos, Sol de Janeiro incentivized customers by offering coupons through post-purchase emails. The brand then used Yotpo’s AI smart filters and search to allow customers to sort reviews by topic (fragrance, texture, etc.), or by customer attributes (skin type, skin concern, age), to see content from past buyers with similar needs.

Finally, with Yotpo’s Visual Marketing Suite, Sol de Janeiro was able to curate and display customer photos taken from Instagram, as well as photos in reviews and photos uploaded directly on-site. Sharing customer photos helped promote the “beauty is an attitude” mentality that is essential to Sol de Janeiro’s brand identity.   

Results

In just six months, Yotpo increased Sol de Janeiro’s reviews by 4.3x. With more reviews and visual UGC displayed onsite, the brand has been able to deliver personalized, relevant content that resonates with shoppers. Over 82% of all Sol de Janeiro sales now come from shoppers that have interacted with UGC.

“Incorporating social proof at every touchpoint throughout the customer journey has not only allowed us to build trust with our growing customer base, but has also created an increase in engagement, revenue, and an overall improvement in our relationships with our customers,” Yang explains. Consumer trust and loyalty has improved so dramatically that Sol de Janeiro has seen a 58% increase in returning customers.

The entire process, from set up to the results today, has been incredible for us. Yotpo is the first big tool we implemented from both a cost and impact point of view, and it has seriously paid off.
Advice
“Feedback, both the good and the bad, should be important in everything you do. Read every customer review, and try your best to respond to their suggestions and requests. This helps in product development as well as brand and community building.”

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