Learn how to transform visionary product ideas into wildly popular product as Sarah Rose, VP of Product at award-winning e-tailer ModCloth, explains how the company leverages customer participation. In this presentation, first seen at the Products are Hard Conference (#PAH13), Sarah shares a case study of how ModCloth brought consumer engagement into the product development process to translate innovative ideas into high-performing experiences that customers love.

1. Your Most Valuable Product Development Tool:
Your Customer
Sarah Rose, VP Product
@sarahfrose

2. From a dorm room at CMU…

3. To an industry-leading social commerce company
known for its vintage-inspired clothes.
#2!

4. We’re Democratizing Fashion
Make the Cut is a crowdsourced Be the Buyer allows our Name It and Win It
design contest. Users submit users to pick samples for engages users in
designs and vote on which our store. product-naming contests.
should be produced.

5. Pioneering Social Commerce
October 2009

7. Customers provide direct feedback
11.3% 88.7%

8. Skip It? Or Fix It?

9. Feedback leads to valuable improvements

10. BTB styles outperform their counterparts – over two
times the sales velocity in 1st week

11. Reinventing Social Commerce,
a Case Study

12. The Challenge:
Sustain ModCloth’s leadership
in social commerce.
Find new ways to empower our girl and
foster her participation in our experience

13. There was no shortage of Big Ideas;
the hard part was figuring out where to start
Be the
Outfit
Designer
Photos
Branded hot
air balloons
Be the
Buyer 2.0
Customer
Boards Q&A
Free French
fries
Apps Activity
Feeds

14. First, we assembled a great team
• VALUABLE - • FEASIBLE -
Responsible for Provides feasibility
overall success or and encourages
failure possibility
Product Lead
Manager Engineer
Lead Business
Designer Lead
• USABLE - • ACTIONABLE -
Delivers great Represents
customer operational
experiences processes and
concerns

15. “The Sixth (Wo)man”

16. We’re obsessed with our girl

17. We involved our customer
in every step of our process
LISTEN
LEARN
THINK (DREAM!)
TEST

18. We listened to what
our customer did and said
Tastemakers,
1. We observed what our ie bloggers
customer was doing
in our space Enthusiasts,
ie haul videos
2. Figured out why
she acted like this
Light participation,
3. Brainstormed ideas ie Love, Like, Pin, Share
to address her needs
Site visitors
The Participation Pyramid

19. We learned about our customers’ needs,
motivations, and behaviors
I need outfit
inspiration
and advice!!! I want to
connect with
people like me
I want more
confidence in
my style I need a creative
outlet to express
myself
I want to help
other girls

20. We thought
hard about how
to deliver on
those needs.
Dare I say we
even dreamed
up solutions…
Our Visiontype

21. To figure out MVP,
we looked for clues in:
• Customer insights and
behavior with the visiontype Be the
Designer
Outfit
• Customer social behavior
Be the Photos
off-ModCloth Buyer 2.0
Branded hot
• Tastemaker feedback air balloons
Free french
and behavior fries
Boards
• Technology considerations –
Customer
what’s feasible and possible Apps
Q&A
• Competitors moves Activity
Feeds

22. Finally, we made
our best, informed guess,
and started
to test, making sure we
could fail fast

23. Result? Our customer loves being an integral part of our shopping
experience, and we love having her participate!

24. Wherever she may be!

25. Proof is in the Numbers
Style Gallery visitors convert at 2-3x normal rate and have
higher average order values

26. Next step in maintaining
social commerce leadership?
Our customer is on this journey with us

27. “It is good to have an end
to journey toward; but it is
the journey that matters, in
the end.”
- Ernest Hemingway

28. Thank you!
@sarahfrose
@ModCloth
Facebook.com/ModCloth