Pepe Jeans Brings Down Overall RTO Rate By 40%

The GoKwik Solution

GoKwik’s Smart COD Suite is a revolutionary solution designed to help eCommerce brands like Pepe Jeans tackle their RTO challenges intelligently. Backed by artificial intelligence and machine learning, the model has been carefully crafted to weed out high-risk shoppers,

implement necessary interventions at various stages, and incentivise shoppers to increase prepaid conversions while reducing the risk of high RTO rates.

Upon deeply studying Pepe Jeans India's online business, GoKwik was confident that its Smart COD Suite would prove highly beneficial for the denim brand.

Given Pepe Jeans' large scale and high traffic, GoKwik incrementally introduced interventions across three phases to safeguard its conversion rate.

Phase 1: Introduced Soft Interventions

Shoppers are often used to shopping in a set way, and introducing sudden frictions can lead to a loss of conversions and potential business opportunities. Keeping this in mind, GoKwik introduced soft interventions on Pepe’s website to build confidence in both the brand’s team and its shoppers.

The Smart COD Suite analysed Pepe’s incoming traffic and identified high-risk shoppers — those with low buying intent. It then implemented COD Blocking on the brand’s checkout window, meaning these identified high-risk shoppers were not shown COD as a payment option, pushing them to place only prepaid orders.

While these high-risk shoppers were marginal in number considering the brand’s overall traffic, implementing COD blocking proved fruitful, leading to a dip in the high RTO rate.

Phase 2: Implemented Stronger Solutions

After a couple of months of gaining confidence in the performance of the Smart COD Suite, Pepe Jeans permitted GoKwik to implement stronger interventions on its checkout. Teams from both companies met regularly to study the performance of these interventions at various levels, including state, city, pin code, and even product ID. This detailed analysis helped in understanding the impact of the interventions and making necessary adjustments to ensure high success.

In addition to implementing interventions, Pepe also agreed to open cash on delivery as a payment option across 1,000 additional pin codes, which it was previously sceptical of during the ongoing Indian festive season.

Phase 3: Added Strategic Interventions Based On Various Paramters

Within five months of leveraging the services of the Smart COD Suite, Pepe Jeans witnessed an incremental decrease in the RTO rate. This was significant because, while the entire fashion industry was seeing a spike in RTO orders due to the festive season, Pepe’s RTO was incrementally decreasing.

In phase 3, Pepe Jeans opened more pin codes while strategically introducing interventions based on various parameters, including product IDs, cities, states, and even UTMs. The aim was to ensure high conversions while incrementally opening COD as a payment option across more pin codes and still witnessing a dip in RTOs.

To support GoKwik’s efforts, Pepe also studied their data rigorously to understand market dynamics, shopper behaviour on their website, and other important aspects. They also made necessary changes to their marketing and operations strategies and improved the supply chain, further reducing their RTO rate.

The Result

Pepe Jeans witnessed a massive change in its business metrics in just a year. The brand’s:

• Overall RTO decreased by 40%
• The prepaid share increased by 20%

All of this was achieved without impacting Pepe Jeans’ conversion rate, positively impacting the brand’s bottom line.