The fashion industry is notoriously tough to weave into. Trends shift, tastes change, and competition is continuously growing. And with a major shopping shift toward direct-to-consumer ecommerce the past few years, apparel brand hopefuls should be prepped with bottomless marketing budgets to snag more online traffic.
To stitch up a brand that stands out, makes a statement, and turns a profit, there has to be true revolution—a tough characteristic to come by in modern apparel. UNTUCKit is one brand, though, that’s been transforming the very fabric of fashion for more than a decade. But what elusive innovation has the brand been building on since 2011? What iconic trait has made UNTUCKit a household name?
As the name hints at, UNTUCKit was born from a mission to make shirts that look good untucked.
It’s one of those ideas that has people wondering “Why didn’t I think of that?!” The simplicity of it is the big draw that’s sold millions of shirts around the world. On a grander scale, it’s an ethos that resonates deeply with brand fans: You shouldn’t have to sacrifice comfort in order to look good.
That same uncompromising principle applies to every part of the company. From the brand’s bread-and-butter button-down shirts to its in-store experience to its online customer journey, shoppers know they don’t have to compromise a thing to have an elevated experience.
When Zest came onto UNTUCKit’s radar, it clicked pretty quickly that the same tried-and-true values apply to how people gift. No one should have to sacrifice a great online shopping experience just because they want to purchase a product for someone else instead of for themself. From that first chat to today, the gifting experience UNTUCKit has been able to craft with Zest threads seamlessly into its long-standing mission.
The Challenge: UNTUCKit Scoured Options for a Gifting Solution to Help Create an Omni-channel CX
From its first brick-and-mortar store to its innovations in DTC ecommerce, the team at UNTUCKit has been redefining standards while striving for a true omni-channel shopping experience.
Since the beginning, generating a genuine, loyalty-earning experience in-store has been a defining trait for the company. Its simpler store design (and occasional shot of scotch) resonates deeply with shoppers—mostly men between 25 and 70 years old—and lets them see patterns, feel fabrics, and find their fit while being given the VIP treatment.
And while that iconic experience can’t be fully replicated online, cruising the website is still a standout experience. The journey is dotted with touchpoints that are supportive and personalized, like virtual assistants via chat or video, a Fit Finder, and a wishlist builder to share with friends or family.
Despite every benefit tucked into online shopping trips, there was one piece missing to the puzzle — gifting. UNTUCKit products make especially popular gifts, but perfecting that journey was a big hurdle to clear on the way toward a comprehensive CX. Shoppers sending gifts had to settle for gift cards or figure out gifting logistics on their own. And UNTUCKit was left with cloudy insights to their gifting channel, like who’s gifting, who’s receiving, and what’s popular. Each bit of data is crucial to curating a better experience, but the team simply didn’t have a way to tap into it.
Digital and physical gift cards are beneficial in the fact that they’re surely gifts, but it’s hard to understand who’s on the receiving end of those cards. The brand’s Holiday Gifting Concierge helped paint a clearer picture around gifters and recipients, but knowing if someone heeded advice and bought a gift was still foggy. And the gift message field available to shoppers was rarely filled in during checkout.
The end-to-end experience was tough to pin down, and that challenge grew only more when considering that the gifting audience was dramatically different than UNTUCKit’s target customer. Most of UNTUCKit’s customers are 25- to 55-year-old men who have a professional job with a casual dress code. When it comes to customers buying gifts, however, nearly half are women shopping for their partners.
Without better insight into who was giving, who was receiving, and the entire gifting journey, creating a better, truly omni-channel experience was impossible.
The Solution: Zest Partnership Creates Dream Gifting Option for UNTUCKit Team and Customers
The teams at UNTUCKit that’ve been fine-tuning the ecommerce CX knew gifting didn’t quite fit into the rest of the customer experience. It’s always been a sore spot, but no solution on the market truly fit their needs. Until Zest came across their table (and at the perfect time).
Zest’s gifting platform would empower UNTUCKit to offer gifters and recipients a seamless gifting flow, churn up a deeper understanding of the gifting channel as a whole, and be easy to implement with its frictionless Shopify integration.
With Zest, gifting went from opening act to main event. It became its own dedicated shopping experience—easy, enjoyable, and insightful. In lieu of standalone gift message fields at checkout or relying on gift cards to be a catchall for every gifting need, UNTUCKit set up Zest’s fluid functionality before the fourth quarter gifting spree. This partnership was set to have the greatest impact with gifters, recipients, and UNTUCKit’s bottom line.
UNTUCKit’s one-to-one gifting went from passive to personalized when Zest’s “Send as a Gift” button was set up. It’s a gifting solution that offers:
- thoughtful digital greeting cards.
- personalized gift messages.
- flexible digital gift delivery via text or email.
- instant gift note delivery.
- swift payment options (just like shopping for yourself).
It’s an accessible, adaptable, and modern take on buying an online gift—a much-needed breath of fresh gifting air in an otherwise stagnant space. And with “Send as a Gift” offered as an option on every product details page, shoppers are inspired to gift just about anything to friends and family for any occasion (or just because).
Gifting with Zest is straightforward and intuitive for both the gifter and giftee, which has been a welcome experience met with quick adoption and rave results.
The Results: UNTUCKit Sees Gift Sales Grow During First Holiday Season with Zest
Since adding Zest to the fold, UNTUCKit’s gifting experience feels cut from the same cloth as the rest of the brand’s customer touchpoints. Now, when someone wants to send an UNTUCKit good as a gift, they don’t have to compromise on the gift or the experience.
While Zest isn’t the only gift option today — the Holiday Gifting Concierge is still available to help gifters choose the perfect present (and spread the word about Zest), and gift cards will always be a mainstay — it surely fills a big gap in the CX. With Zest, shoppers can send a thoughtful present with a personalized message that’s less hands-on than the concierge service yet more memorable than a gift card. It’s a balance that resonated with customers as they wrapped up their holiday shopping in 2022.
After adding “Send as a Gift” to the experience, shoppers showed they preferred this new choice. Over the partnership’s inaugural holiday season, UNTUCKit saw an impressive impact.
- Hundreds of new gifters and recipients were acquired as they opted into UNTUCKit’s marketing while in the Zest flow. Now the brand can engage gifters to gift again as well as encourage recipients to become first-time customers on their own.
- Gift card sales dropped 16% YoY while Zest helped increase total gift purchases by 10%, proving that this new option was enthusiastically adopted by gifters.
- Average gift order value increased 3% as shoppers spent more on gifting a thoughtful product than on a preset gift card value.
- Younger audiences were better connected to the CX while gifting older family members thanks to the intuitive digital-first approach and ability to send gifts in a text message.
The preference for a dedicated, delightful, and modernized gifting option was clear. UNTUCKit was able to generate more excitement around gifting and offer their shoppers an elevated option while garnering deeper insights into the entire gifting channel. The team at UNTUCKit sees an opportunity to continue building on the success of the 2022 holidays and show, once again, why it’s tops in the apparel industry.
Being able to market gifting in a new light means differentiated messaging, standout campaigns, and seizing big opportunities to earn loyalty, long-term sales, and repeat gifters. As Zest continues to innovate and optimize a truly engaging gifting journey, that’s an opportunity that’s only going to continue to grow for UNTUCKit in the years ahead.
UNTUCKit Continues to Cut Its Own Pattern With Total CX Package
Whether strolling through the doors of a brick-and-mortar shop or scrolling through the pages of its ecommerce website, fans of UNTUCKit have come to expect a blissful customer experience.
And with Zest gifting in its CX mix, customers can now expect the same elevated journey no matter if they’re shopping for themselves or someone else. There’s no sacrificing convenience and ease to purchase something special. And there’s no compromising thoughtfulness or personalization for an experience that’s fast and simple. By clicking “Send as a Gift,” UNTUCKit shoppers can simply have the best of both worlds.
With clearer insight into this historically cloudy growth channel, gifters and recipients are better understood and catered to at every step of their gifting experience. No matter how cut-throat the apparel industry grows, UNTUCKit stands out from the crowd and generates long-lasting loyalty with the gifting choice that customers have been craving.
