ecommerce branding case study

21 High Quality eCommerce Case Studies

1. Allbirds

Gallantway does some amazing eCommerce case studies and this is certainly one of the best articles I’ve read on this blog.

This case study goes into a very detailed breakdown of some of the existing strategies that Allbirds uses to acquire new customers including social ads, SEO, email marketing, design, user experience and much more.

Another cool thing I liked about this case study is the listing of Allbirds current tools stack. This certainly helps evaluate which tools eCommerce founders are using and where they fit into the overall growth strategy

2. Coconut Bowls

This e commerce case study by Vyper is an awesome example of the power of nailing social-driven competitions.

Coconut Bowls achieved over 200k pageviews, 37k+ followers and over 40k new emails. The cost? Less than $1000. Amazing result.

The great thing about this case study too is that it shares an incredible amount of detail.. Almost step-by-step which is awesome value for any marketer or founder reading this.

The team at Web Profits are very impressive when it comes to writing amazing growth studies as I’ve shared in within the case studies for SaaS Companies.

For those outside of Australia, you may not know who Koala is but by all means, that’s no reason why you shouldn’t read this case study. It’s amazing!

In just 12 months, Koala grew from $0 to $13 million. They had the perfect mix of everything from the Offer, Website, Landing pages, Facebook Ads and so much more. The offer especially is what really helped catapult Koala into a juggernaut in such a short period of time.

Not only was executing these channels so well, it was their creative strategy and creative marketing/design that really helped them form a captivated and engaged customer audience.

4. Gymshark

The story of GymShark and Founder Ben Francis is phenomenal - incredible growth for a company founded over 7 years ago to become a $1.3 Billion brand .

Whilst the $1.3 Billion brand of today is a great result (and only going to continue to grow), it was their year-on-year revenue growth and traction which really caught my eye in this case study by Beeketing. 193% according to this case study from 2013 - 2016.

This case study goes into deep detail about GymShark’s traffic sources, influencer/ambassador programs (biggest key to their success), social media networks connecting with their fans + more.

I love the MVMT brand so much, in fact I’m wearing one of their watches right now as I write this. Both Jake and Kramer built an incredible brand at 22 years old with $20,000 in debt, only to exit 5 years later for $300 Million. This is a case study worth reading.

This growth study goes into detail about their social media marketing strategy and channels (They nailed their Instagram page I can say that for sure - That’s how I discovered them in the first place), Paid Marketing across Facebook Ads and Google Ads as well as SEO (awesome detail).

The level of detail + screenshots of examples across their channels is highly valuable.

This isn’t a highly detailed case study in terms of length, but incredibly valuable for a branding lessons and how great branding and creative can unlock growth.

I absolutely love the branding of RXBar - such a simple concept, yet so much cut through. So much it was a big part of their strategy that helped them achieve $600 Million in the space of four years. Impressive.

The story of the early stages of RXbar is what I most admire though - pure hustle and doing the things that don’t scale. Great story.

7. Frank Body

A brand that nails UGC Instagram that spurred them into a hypergrowth phase was Frank Body. Their Instagram, content & social is second to none. A leader in the eCommerce space in my opinion.

Frank Body used UGC in their early stages of growth as their core focus, which was very deliberate from day 1 according to a quote by the founder Jess in Forbes.

One thing not taken into account with their Instagram dominance was Instagram’s lighter API + pay to play/reach wasn’t as low for organic posts as what it is now. It’s not a fact that this helped Frank Body by any means, but they were one of the early brands that nailed UGC and Instagram.

Their Email Marketing and Website UX really is one to seek inspiration from for any eCommerce founder or marketer.

8. Princess Polly

Here’s another awesome case study by Gallantway on Princess Polly’s customer acquisition strategy. Definitely read this if you work in fashion eCommerce.

Princess Polly is an Australian-brand which has experienced huge growth which has used influencer marketing, social media organic, Facebook Ads, TikTok Ads, Email Marketing and an amazing UX for its users.

The case study also includes awesome visuals and examples of what Princess Polly does in their key marketing channels. I particularly like the evolution of their website design and UX from 2010 to 2020.

9. Beardbrand

There’s quite a few case studies and posts on BeardBrand’s growth, but this article by Sleeknote tops the rest.

Love the breakdown of 13 of Beardbrand’s key strategies that grew their online store. Lots of easy wins for eCommerce founders and marketers to pick up, run with and test to see if these strategies work for their brand.

A key channel that absolutely did an amazing job with (and still do an amazing job), is their YouTube Channel. They even have over 1.6 Million subscribers now.

Another amazing case study with fantastic imagery to highlight the examples.

10. Warby Parker

Another beautiful eCommerce brand that experienced huge growth in a matter of a few years is Warby Parker.

Whilst Warby Parker has raised a lot of money to grow the brand, learning from their early day marketing strategies is worth noting.

Press in the early days was a core strategy to get the name of the brand into the market, fast. However, it was the social good element that played a key role in getting traction, with press being a way of quick amplification.

PR can be expensive if not done right, especially in the early days of a brand, but Warby Parker nailed this. Worth looking into the PR campaigns they did in their first couple of years of existence.

11. Filtergrade

I thought this was timely to share, especially the rise in people selling digital products through Twitter or through their community/following. This is an interesting business many of you may have not heard before, and it’s not your traditional eCommerce type of company. Filtergrade sells Digital Products, such as photo filters, video filters and more.

Filtergrade in this case study doesn’t have huge numbers in terms of monthly visitors (only 50k per month) 150,000 page views, but they sell digital products that have very high margin.

It’s highlighted that the main channels for their success is through social media, influencers and email marketing.

12. Huckberry

Content, content, content. We know it’s so important for so many brands to stand out and engage consumers, but how many do it right? Huckberry in this case do it well. Their content game is strong across all channels from social to email marketing.

Another amazing article by the Sumo team who go into great detail and a detailed analysis backed up with graphics showing the specific examples Huckberry has used with their key marketing tactics.

Huckberry nailed their ambassador/affiliate program to gain faster WOM and generate more referrals and brand engagement.

13. Brooklinen

The Brooklinen journey from being founded to where they are today is pretty awesome. After smashing their Kickstarter original target of $50k to receive nearly 5x ($237k to be accurate), they’re on track to do over $100 million in 2020. Amazing growth in such a short journey of the company.

This case study illustrates that Brooklinen focused on a lean growth strategy that kept costs low, focusing on whatever it took to achieve more WOM + referrals.

A key strategy they engaged in to spearhead this lean strategy is using micro-influencers to achieve faster WOM and also generate UGC. They would then use this UGC content to then fuel all brand advertising. You can see this worked for them with the % breakdowns by Similarweb, with ~33% direct and ~44% search.

Brooklinen’s Facebook Ads and Email Marketing game are pretty good too!

Mecca is an incredible brand I’ve only come to learn more about (probably only learnt of this recently since I’m not a primary customer haha).

Mecca’s growth is very interesting and have looked into more myself, especially with their Facebook Groups strategy (which isn’t mentioned in this amazing case study - worth looking into separately).

This case study goes into granular detail of Mecca’s website, content, paid search, paid social, email marketing & much more. The visuals and screenshots of Mecca using these strategies in practice makes it another epic case study by the Web Profits team.

I’m not 100% sure the trend of mattress companies growing so fast in revenue (just like Koala), but nonetheless definitely a lot we can learn from these two companies.

Similar to Koala in some respect, Purple nailed Social Media and Video. Quick rapid fire testing between creative and copy is what helped them turn into a $200 million ARR company in just 5 years.

Looking at their Facebook Ads and past video ads, I can see once got budget behind them, they convert and engage audiences quickly.

16. Nasty Gal

Nasty Girl built an amazing growth engine to turn it into a $100million+ business per year.

The brand nailed their value proposition for their target market, whilst leveraging social networks and platforms such as eBay.

In addition, they managed to execute strong WOM fast and a loyal customer following. 

Here we go… another Mattress company that does great marketing and overall product and customer experience. Lots we can learn from :)

Sleeknote does amazing growth case studies of some of the biggest eCommerce brands. In this post they go into detail 5 key strategies that Casper used as part of it’s core growth engine; nailing the customer experience, creating content for every stage of the funnel, amazing link building strategy, Google Ads and referrals.

The link building strategy they used to land some big publications that provide a Do-follow and high DA, is really good to read. Definitely sparks some ideas for link building for some of the brands I’m involved in.

18. Supreme

Another amazing case study by Chris Von Wilpert who’s also done other amazing case studies on SaaS companies.

Great detailed analysis of Supreme’s growth which has helped them achieve a huge spike of growth in revenue and social following, whilst building a “cult-like” following with their audience.

This is one of my favourite eCommerce studies just due to the fact of the amazing imagery and screenshots to highlight the exact strategies and tactics used by Supreme. Love it!

19. Dollar Shave Club

This case study on Dollar Shave club is dated back to 2015 but very well worth the read.

This growth study goes into detail the UX of their product onboarding process and email marketing, viral messaging, social media examples + more.

Dollar Shave Club in my opinion was they nailed the customer experience - everything from the boxes customers receive to then their email marketing and videos. Great brand.

20. Harry's

Harry’s a great brand to learn about eCommerce marketing done right and no better company to write this growth case study other than Sleeknote (not affiliated with them at all, they just do really amazing content).

This study goes in-depth on 5 key marketing strategies Harry adopted in their marketing efforts including SEO (backlinks, link-building, etc), word of mouth/referrals, ad strategies + more. Strategy #5 is pretty clever.

Throughout the article it’s evident that Harry nailed their messaging + storytelling across all their channels. Great copy + stories make great brands stand out.

21. Bellroy

Another great case study by Sleeknote with this one on focus on Bellroy, one of Australia’s top success stories.

Really good content that goes in-depth across 7 growth marketing strategies that have contributed to Bellroy’s growth success.

I definitely recommend reading strategy #3 “The marketer magnet method”. Bellroy nails their above the fold + page experience across key product pages.