SPOT-A-SHOP aims to bring the best fashion and sportswear web stores and all their discounted items into one destination, helping consumers to find the best possible bargains online. As a lean start-up, the company began by designing a minimum viable product (MVP). “We tested our MVP first in order to get proof of concept before we continued to develop the product any further,” explains CEO Jesse Jyläs. “It was a test-and-iterate approach.”
THE GOALS
Expand internationally into two new markets in the coming year
Become key player in the online retail market space
Produce 10x growth of company within the next two years
THE APPROACH
Initiated search marketing
Set target cost per acquisition (CPA)
Optimised campaigns to sustain growth
THE RESULTS
Increased clicks by 500% with 30% lower cost per click (CPC) in Finland
Expanded to two new markets within a year of launching the company
One of the key outtakes was that international export would need to sit high on the agenda. “The MVP and pilot was done in Finland, and we knew immediately that the market size was way too limited for our business. The concept was built with the plan to scale to multiple countries in a short period of time.”
Broader business horizons through digital
The SPOT-A-SHOP team was careful to map out an intelligent expansion plan. “With the help of the Google GET and our internal analysis, we were able to make a confident decision on which markets to enter,” Jyläs explains. “We went through various studies giving us insights into consumer behaviour, macro fashion trends, market potential, and competition landscape in order to determine the opportunity in various markets.”
With the ambition of winning international customers, SPOT-A-SHOP is making smart use of Google AdWords to capture relevant traffic at the right moment of the purchasing funnel. “Search has enabled us to acquire numerous new customers within a target cost per acquisition (CPA), as well as helped us to scale our business to new markets quickly,” says Jyläs. “We set the target CPA which we are able to pay, and then in order to reach our own ROI targets, we are continuously optimising towards a set goal. Google enables us to do so across the multiple channels.”
"We were positively surprised by the amount of resources available from Google in terms of exporting tools and advice"
- Jesse Jyläs, CEO, SPOT-A-SHOP
Managing costs in this way is a key factor in the young company’s success. “We have been able to push down the CPAs in order for them to remain at an acceptable level for us. Through this, we have been able to scale our business fast and efficiently. We’ve been able to increase our marketing expenditures across the Google channels because we’ve been able to meet the target CPA levels. As a startup, this was extremely important for us in order to scale up.”
Capitalising on consumers’ needs
With the globalisation efforts underway, SPOT-A-SHOP is focusing on optimising for cross-device usage. “We created a responsive site straight from the start, as mobile was an important play for us,” Jyläs says. “We realised the importance of mobile page speeds, particularly in the fashion marketplace. SPOT-A-SHOP provides a simple way for consumers to find bargain products among the massive assortment items on our webpage, and we want to ensure that they have a quick and convenient way to do so.” Supported by mobile ad campaigns, today up to 45% of visits to SPOT-A-SHOP come via smartphones.
When asked to sum up the factors that have helped make the business a hit with the public, Jyläs is quick with an answer. “The concept is very simple to understand,”he explains. “We really bring value to the consumer while buying fashion online.
Through SPOT-A-SHOP, consumers are able to find the best possible fashion bargains from various international web stores. We see that the consumers really value the huge assortment of discounted products available through our webpage."
