Explore The Sailthru 100

JustFab is an emerging global leader in shoes, handbags, accessories and clothing. The brand’s VIP program offers monthly deliveries, personal styling, discounts and other services. This model has driven a compound annual growth rate of 124% since 2010, and is laying the groundwork for a future IPO. The customer experience is among the most personalized we’ve seen of any fashion retailer: first-time visitors are quizzed not just about their sizes, but also about the styles and looks they prefer and even the celebrities they admire.

Big-box retailing juggernaut Walmart generated nearly half a trillion dollars in revenue in 2016, but faces tough competition from Amazon as the retailer tackles the ecommerce space. Personalization is a powerful weapon in its arsenal - Walmart has adopted many of the personalization tactics we measured, albeit to varying degrees of success. Like other retailers, the company provides editorial content alongside product listings to encourage deeper engagement. Walmart also serves up both attribute-based and collaboratively filtered product recommendations.

In keeping with its digital roots and high-status clientele, fashion retailer Net-a-Porter offers a slick web and mobile experience that includes high-touch personalization tailored to style-conscious consumers. The fashion retailer onboards new customers by asking them which designers and styles they like - although the list is exhaustive and challenging to parse - and their welcome email invites further preference sharing. Net-a-Porter offers attribute-based recommendations framed as a “How to Wear It” guide, served up alongside collaboratively filtered recommendations.

eBay invented many of the techniques online retailers use today for personalization and broader customer experience innovation, and their robust management of the purchase funnel reflects their heritage as an ecommerce pioneer. The online marketplace generated nearly $9 billion in 2016 sales, with sustained year-over-year growth. Grounded in the idea that eBay customers are hunting for specific items, eBay tunes the customer experience to connect people and products as efficiently as possible. The eBay site offers recommendations driven by customers’ category purchases as well as attribute/similarity data, and the brand drives purchases through messaging that increases in urgency as relevant auctions close. However, eBay’s recommendations appear to be limited to similar products or categories, which could be improved through the use of other forms of implicit data.

Apparel retailer Nordstrom built its brand on an obsession with customer service, and the retailer’s strong digital presence reflects this focus. Online sales are a significant driver for growth in their $3.3 billion business. As expected, their site and app offer robust editorial content and detailed reviews, enhanced by unique features such as a word cloud of customer comments and useful information about specific fit and sizing. This content is integrated with related product recommendations, driven both by product attributes and collaborative filtering. Notably, Nordstrom is one of the few retailers surveyed that follow up on abandoned carts with same-day emails.

While other retailers in the sector are consolidating or facing bankruptcy, outdoor goods retailer REI is thriving with $2.5 billion in 2016 sales and a healthy balance sheet. The sense of community and social responsibility that animates their brand extends to their digital experience. Like other lifestyle retailers, REI offers a wide range of inspirational editorial content through their Co-Op Journal, and REI’s social team are very engaged on social channels.

Like others in the apparel space, high-end fashion retailer MATCHESFASHION.COM quizzes new customers about the styles and designers they prefer, and their email communication is highly personalized based on those preferences. The luxury retailer also invests in editorial content with “The Style Report,” an online fashion and lifestyle magazine, and personalizes the customer experience through MyStylist, a complimentary personal shopping concierge.

Big-box home improvement retailer The Home Depot serves customers with a wide range of product expertise, including professional contractors who know exactly what they need and first-time DIYers. The home improvement retailer pulled in $94 billion in 2016 revenue, and a strong first quarter bodes well for profits in 2017. The site and mobile app feature robust editorial content, offering ideas and inspiration along with specific how-to guides for a wide range of projects – all tightly linked with the products required to complete them. This includes well-curated Q&A sections for specific products.

Upscale casual wear retailer Abercrombie & Fitch is working to offset a decline of in-store sales and compete more effectively with digital-native retailers and fast-fashion chains by investing in a more robust and innovative online experience. A key element of this is the thoughtful and measured timing and cadence of email communications. After welcoming new customers, messaging gradually ramps up to promote the retailer’s loyalty program and encourage use of the mobile app. Along the way, A&F collects information about customers’ preferred categories and brands and uses it to drive attribute-based and collaboratively filtered product recommendations - although email communication is not highly personalized.

Alex and Ani has built an enthusiastic following for their spiritually-inspired and socially conscious line of jewelry and accessories; accordingly, the retailer achieved the highest net promoter score of the retailers we surveyed.

Consumer electronics retailer Best Buy’s online sales grew more than 20% year-over-year in 2016, faster than Walmart, Home Depot and Amazon. Personalization and thoughtful customer on boarding helped drive this growth. First-time visitors are invited to sign up for their newsletter, and the site includes thoughtfully-placed advertising – including for products not sold on the site. Interestingly, if the site doesn’t have any viewing history for the customer, it will call attention to this by inviting them to start browsing and suggesting some categories to try first.

UK-based grocery and general merchandise retailer Tesco is recognized for their commitment to data-driven retailing; the grocery chain took a strong lead in its sector through early investments in customer research, analytics, and loyalty programs. Fittingly, Tesco’s online personalization efforts are more advanced, bridging the online and offline experience more thoroughly than their peers.

Founded in 2000, apparel retailer ASOS was an early pioneer in online fashion; since then, the retailer has built a strong brand and following in the UK and Europe, and is emerging as a powerful force in North American style. Like other fashion retailers, ASOS helps shoppers discover new products through attribute-based “Buy the Look” suggestions, and the ASOS site offers a chatbot for product questions. ASOS is also one of the few retailers to immediately tailor the experience for new customers to their gender in email offers and the mobile app experience.

Birchbox helps customers discover new beauty and grooming products through subscription and à la carte offerings, and the formula is working: the fourth quarter of 2016 included the company’s all-time highest sales month, and the company achieved profitability this year. The retailer goes above and beyond to understand its customers: asking not just about her skin tone and type, but also about her level of beauty knowledge, skin tone, income, brand preferences, and even how she styles her hair.

Like many other clothing retailers, Men’s Wearhouse invests in editorial content to spark style ideas for its customers – “Guy’d Lines” is their blog and content hub for lookbooks and tips on style and closet management. But the experience isn’t one-size-fits-all: the site keeps track of individual customers details, and serves up only appropriately-sized items in category searches. The still-in-beta Look Finder can recommend items or entire outfits based on style, occasion, fit, price range, and color palette.

Dominant ecommerce player Amazon is famously customer-obsessed, which has paid off with more than $135 billion in revenue last year and 25% year-over-year sales growth in the second quarter of 2017. The company was among the first to use both attribute-based and collaboratively filtered product recommendations to connect person and product – to the point that phrases like “products like…”, “people who bought…” and “people like you…” are deeply associated with the retailer.

Health-forward cosmetics retailer Colorescience offers a unique product line that blurs the lines between makeup and skincare. What sets it apart is a clever rewards program - not only does the program offer product discounts for repeat purchasers, it also hands out points for product reviews, connecting on social channels, filling out surveys and even reading the brand blog. Colorescience also places a greater emphasis on the voice of the customer through prominent placement of customer reviews, and a “social gallery” highlighting customer-submitted product photos.

Discount footwear retailer Famous Footwear’s mobile app stands out for its use of a messaging center that includes personalized offers, and both their site and app are unique in their use of gamification to encourage repeat purchases by showing the customer’s progress towards their next reward. Overall, the online experience is clean, well-designed and easy to navigate, with prominent but non-intrusive offers and promotions.

Footwear and active wear retailer Nike has a long history of innovation, both in its products and a wide range of fitness apps and technologies. Nike also pioneered personalized manufacturing, with the core NikeID line as well as custom collections across other brands. Nike offers a range of mobile apps dedicated to running and general fitness, as well as a SNKRS app tailored to sneaker heads looking for exclusive content and the latest drops.

Like its sibling brand JustFab, footwear retailer Shoedazzle stands apart by quizzing first-time visitors not just about their sizes, but also the styles and looks they prefer and even the celebrities they admire. All this data gives the retailer a nuanced view of their customers, and it powers a highly customized “My Showroom” section as well as email messaging and retargeting that increase in relevancy over time as individual customers engage.

Venerable retailer J.C. Penney is in the midst of a three-year turnaround plan, and has embraced digital with a robust mobile app, as well as early adoption of beacons to direct shoppers to items in customers’ carts that are in stock. Its mobile app stands out for convenient features such as in-store pickup for online orders, tutorials and on boarding for new customers, a wallet for coupons and rewards, as well as unique technologies such as a visual search feature that uses machine learning to recognize objects in customer photos and search for similar items.

Rent the Runway pioneered online apparel and accessory rentals in 2009, and has since expanded to offer apparel subscription programs and brick-and-mortar locations. Customers can rent items for 4-8 days, or subscribe to three-garments-at-a-time shipments to keep their everyday wardrobe fresh. Subscribers also get access to exclusive discounts as well as access to concierges and personal stylists.

Like its competitors in the home-improvement sector, Lowe’s relies heavily on how-to guides and video tutorials to encourage DIY’ers to learn and buy. However, Lowe’s builds on this with highly detailed preferences collection; just as a good apparel retailer knows a lot about its customers’ sizes and style preferences, the Lowe’s profile manager is richly featured, with a “Home Profile” section where customers can upload information about rooms in their homes such as floor dimensions and layouts. Unfortunately, this customer-provided data does not appear to meaningfully influence product recommendations or impact the shopping experience--it’s used primarily as a place to store notes.

Children’s retailer Toys “R” Us has one of the most robust product recommendation systems in the market, with everything from attribute-based and collaboratively filtered options, as well as trending items, bestsellers and a strong gift recommendation engine. The toy retailer understands that the end users of their product (children) aren’t necessarily the users of the site (parents and gift-givers), and the customer experience is nuanced to reflect this.

DSW (Designer Shoe Warehouse) is a discount footwear, handbag and accessory retailer with more than 500 stores, as well as an ecommerce property established in 1998. The retailer’s personalization efforts are notable for its app’s gamification of customer loyalty programs, and the use of personalized products in both email messaging and ads retargeting.

Sportswear and footwear retailer Foot Locker is known for its referee-style employee uniforms, and also for a powerful app that caters to sneakerheads with information about where customers can find new drops, and reserve them without standing in line at the store. Additionally, the shoe retailer offers a full-featured loyalty program with discounts for frequent purchases and occasional early access to new releases.

Esteemed retailer Macy’s has a long history in retail, dating back to the opening of its first store in 1851. The retailer makes extensive use of collaboratively-filtered recommendations, driven in part by customer preferences collected at signup. Macy’s uses in-store beacons to send push notifications to their app, alerting customers in or near a store to deals, sales, and items left in the carts. The brand also makes use of personalized offers through its site and app, allowing customers to store and reference active offers in a digital wallet

Established in 1983, J Crew sells apparel and accessories in 575 locations worldwide, earning $2.4 billion in 2016 revenue. Like other fashion retailers, they offer editorial content to engage customers and spark style ideas. J Crew offers both attribute-based and collaboratively filtered recommendations, as well as customer ratings and reviews. New customers are welcomed via an onboarding process that encourages engagement via social channels.

Luxury department store Saks Fifth Avenue is part of the Hudson’s Bay Company, the oldest commercial operation in North America. The company operates 39 stores selling men’s and women’s apparel, as well as an ecommerce operation established in 2000. The luxury retailer helps shoppers complete the look and discover more with attribute-based and collaboratively filtered product recommendations, plus valuable customer ratings and reviews. The company retargets abandoned carts and includes personalized messaging in digital advertisements.