Retain.me launches to streamline logistics of online purchases and increase Customer Retention for retailers

This article is brought to you by Retail Technology Review: Retain.me launches to streamline logistics of online purchases and increase Customer Retention for retailers.

Customer retention specialist Retain.me has unveiled a game-changing tool for online retailers aimed at encouraging repeat visit and purchase rates. The tool has already been trialled and fully implemented by international logistics business Delamode for luxury home accessories retailer Amara.com.

Retain.me replaces the black and white dispatch notes with highly personalised, full-colour printed documents that combine both transactional and marketing content. Documents are batch-produced dynamically, in line with existing pick, pack and dispatch processes.

This new tool focuses on the currently missed opportunity in the fight for customer retention: the returns slip in-pack or in-box. Using its Convergent Personalisation process, Retain.me merges web technologies with traditional media to replace traditional one-colour dispatch notes with highly personalised, multi-functional, full colour printed brochures delivered to consumers at the point of consumption.

Delamode provides Amara.com with 35,000sqft of mezzanine fulfilment space and now manages around 40,000 skus. According to Danor Ionescu, CEO of logistics, Delamode Group: "Continued e-commerce challenges impact the whole supply chain, and in particular fulfilment activity. An ever-more informed and sophisticated customer calls for speed and flexibility in product flows and enabling this helps us to support our client's sustained growth. By reinvesting in the design of our picking processes and optimisation of stock locations, we not only remain true to Amara, but also to our vision to become a trusted leader in logistics for e-commerce."

The brochures carry marketing content based on individual customers' purchase history and personal preferences, offering recommended items, exclusive deals and a link back to a personalised landing page specific to each customer, known as a PURL (personalised URL).

Through the use of PURLs, Retain.me enables retailers to deliver highly curated pages personal to each customer based on their shopping habits, customers with similar purchase behaviour and content specific to them. PURLs can be used in a number of ways by retailers, from helping customers return products online to generating personalised product recommendations..

Andrew Curran, founder, Retain.me, points to Amara's experience with the tool as proof of success. "Our work with online luxury homeware retailer Amara has already seen the benefit of this, with a 13.1% increase in second purchase rate and a 23.3% increase in existing customer purchases."

He added: "Traditional in-pack returns slips and even promotional brochures are uninspiring, and often out of keeping with upmarket etailers' brand philosophies. Yet retailers are acknowledging that the biggest trend in coming years is going to be personalisation and engagement. Retain.me's Convergent Personalisation methodology means etailers can extend their online experience right into their customers' homes – all by making the most of the dispatch note they already insert into boxes. By delivering communication that is more emotionally engaging, retailers have the opportunity to have cut through, and build a lasting relationship with their customers."