

How Manpacks boosted their average order size 84% and reduced churn to under 2% - thesilentist
http://blog.perfectaudience.com/2012/11/01/manpacks-grow-customer-base-customer-service/

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qdpb
> Adding the “snooze” function has helped decrease the churn rate down to just
> 2%.

> By adding more products and flexibility, the average order size increased by
> 84%.

This is pretty much all there is in the article about "how" that is so
prominently featured in link title.

~~~
Roelven
Agree that the article is a bit thin. The adding more products isn't such an
ingenious strategy, pretty logical if you ask me. I like the snooze function
though, one of those extremely powerful ideas that make consumers happy.

~~~
yaknow
It wasn't only adding products, but adding the flexibility to easily
add/remove products via a customer dashboard (while we curated/marketed
products we liked) that allowed us to up our AOV. When we launched it was just
"pick your plan" and we'd automate the rest -- so we sacrificed a little of
the simplicity of automation for the flexibility of service and customization.

Nothing ingenious, just a decision we made that worked.

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mynegation
Does anybody know how companies like that differentiate themselves from 800 lb
gorilla that is Amazon (they do recurring orders)?

Disclaimer: I haven't done any subscription/recurring orders, but am genuinely
interested

~~~
jrubinovitz
A good friend of mine worked for BirchBox, a subscription beauty service for
women and men (Birchbox men), as an intern last summer. From what she told me,
the work they did to create a community around the service helps the company
beat out gorillas such as Amazon. For instance, people will record themselves
opening their Birchbox order and post it on Youtube (do a Youtube search, the
top unboxing I get has 57,996 views). I think Manpacks also plays to the
community, as evident by them tweeting with the fellow who wanted safety
razors.

~~~
ryangripp
Technically Amazon didn't have a Beauty site that was in competition to
BirchBox until Quidsi launched Beautybar.com

Both companies leverage sampling in "boxes" to acquire new customers and
hopefully they will order full sized products in their respective stores.

"Opening box" videos are a popular practice in retail (ecommerce) especially
in the beauty industry.

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NDizzle
I'd like to check out their site but on the other hand I don't want someone
seeing "manpacks.com" in the DNS resolution logs here at work.

~~~
jemfinch
Do you not work in an equal opportunity workplace? Are you concerned that
someone might be grepping the DNS resolution logs to find closeted
homosexuals? Are you legitimately concerned about retribution if someone
believes that you're homosexual?

~~~
NDizzle
Whoa - whoa. None of those things!

It falls in the same bucket as russianbrides.com. I just don't think there's a
reasonable explanation for browsing such a thing at work.

I can pass off HN as keeping tabs on current software and industry trends.

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stevencorona
I've always wanted to get onboard with the Manpacks but it's hard to justify
$10/shirt when I can get a 5-pack of the same kind on Amazon for $18.

~~~
bengl3rt
You're paying to outsource the obligation to remember to order shirts.

Shirts are a little different, but I use it for stuff like razor blades that
are consumable.

~~~
_delirium
You can do that on Amazon too, though only on consumable items where they
think it'll be likely. If there's a "Subscribe & Save" link at the right, you
can choose to make the order recurring instead of one-time, with intervals
ranging from 1-6 months. Random example of a product that has such a feature:
[http://www.amazon.com/Gillette-Fusion-Manual-Cartridges-
Coun...](http://www.amazon.com/Gillette-Fusion-Manual-Cartridges-
Count/dp/B004B8AZH0)

~~~
bengl3rt
Sure, but they don't have a nice GUI or good messaging around why I should use
that to solve this problem specifically.

Also, in a world of politically correct egalitarianism I respect a company
that has the literal and figurative balls to stand up and say, nope, this is
for men (and go so far as to bake that assumption into the product name)

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rcavezza
I've never heard of manpacks until an hour ago, but thanks to this article,
I'm now a customer.

I'm curious what their churn rate was before it was reduced to 2%.

~~~
dmgrow
Definitely agree that more data would be helpful, like:

\- What was churn rate before? \- Is (new churn + snooze) greater or less than
original churn? \- What percentage of customers come off of snooze and
repurchase?

Without more information, it's impossible to pinpoint whether it really is an
effective strategy or just makes a nice headline.

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ryangripp
Snooze Fest. perfect audience isn't even a good remarketing company! Other
good options:

Fetchback Dotomi Criteo Steelhouse Media

