We were brought in to run the search, merchandising, and recommendations program for a contemporary women's apparel brand on Shopify. The shopper at this price point is a working woman in her 30s or 40s making a considered purchase. She compares, she pairs, she completes the look. The onsite experience had to hold her there long enough to do all three.
Michael J. McBride
Founder & CEO, Atelier Commerce
We were brought in to run the search, merchandising, and recommendations program for a contemporary women's apparel brand on Shopify. The shopper at this price point is a working woman in her 30s or 40s making a considered purchase. She compares, she pairs, she completes the look. The onsite experience had to hold her there long enough to do all three.
Michael J. McBride
Founder & CEO, Atelier Commerce
We composed the recommendations engine as outfit logic rather than co-purchase probability, tuned the merchandising stack to the brand's actual shopper, and let engagement depth turn into basket depth. The trailing twelve months tell the story: AOV up +18.8% YoY to $129.51, engaged sessions up +28.2% while raw sessions grew +15.4%, and the brand added $351K in net new revenue on a transactions number that actually moved down 6%. Every order this year was meaningfully more valuable than every order last year.
We composed the recommendations engine as outfit logic rather than co-purchase probability, tuned the merchandising stack to the brand's actual shopper, and let engagement depth turn into basket depth. The trailing twelve months tell the story: AOV up +18.8% YoY to $129.51, engaged sessions up +28.2% while raw sessions grew +15.4%, and the brand added $351K in net new revenue on a transactions number that actually moved down 6%. Every order this year was meaningfully more valuable than every order last year.
Creative сhallenges
Contemporary women's apparel has a discount-trained shopper. The fastest way to lift AOV is to bolt a Frequently Bought Together carousel onto the cart drawer and hope. That mechanic erodes the brand and rarely lifts the basket more than a few percent. The work was to compose recommendations as style direction rather than upsell, so the AOV expansion came from a shopper who felt advised, not pressured.
The second challenge was the platform default. Most contemporary apparel sites are built for a generic age cohort, and the recommendation stack flattens to whoever the platform thinks is shopping. English Factory's actual customer is a working woman in her 30s and 40s, the 35 to 44 bracket is the dominant share of identified revenue at 31.7%, and the merchandise composition had to read for her rather than for the 25 to 34 default the category over-indexes to. The third challenge was holding conversion against a falling category baseline while the basket worked. Contemporary apparel conversion rates have been softening industry-wide as social-feed competition pulls attention out of long sessions. We accepted a controlled softening on session CVR in exchange for a basket lift that more than absorbed it. AOV plus engagement, not raw conversion count, was the lever.
Creative сhallenges
Contemporary women's apparel has a discount-trained shopper. The fastest way to lift AOV is to bolt a Frequently Bought Together carousel onto the cart drawer and hope. That mechanic erodes the brand and rarely lifts the basket more than a few percent. The work was to compose recommendations as style direction rather than upsell, so the AOV expansion came from a shopper who felt advised, not pressured.
The second challenge was the platform default. Most contemporary apparel sites are built for a generic age cohort, and the recommendation stack flattens to whoever the platform thinks is shopping. English Factory's actual customer is a working woman in her 30s and 40s, the 35 to 44 bracket is the dominant share of identified revenue at 31.7%, and the merchandise composition had to read for her rather than for the 25 to 34 default the category over-indexes to. The third challenge was holding conversion against a falling category baseline while the basket worked. Contemporary apparel conversion rates have been softening industry-wide as social-feed competition pulls attention out of long sessions. We accepted a controlled softening on session CVR in exchange for a basket lift that more than absorbed it. AOV plus engagement, not raw conversion count, was the lever.
Style direction, not upsell
Rating
Behind the recommendations, the merchandise composition was tuned to the brand's actual identified shopper. 91.3% of identified revenue is female, 35 to 44 is the dominant age bracket, and the basket lives in a handful of high-AOV metros, New York at $236K and $136 AOV, Dallas at $85K and $147 AOV, Washington at $34K and $151 AOV. The engine is not chasing Gen Z. It is converting the working woman the brand was built for, at a basket she finds reasonable. AOV climbed nearly 19% year over year in a category where most peers are defending AOV against discount pressure, not expanding it.
Style direction, not upsell
Rating
Behind the recommendations, the merchandise composition was tuned to the brand's actual identified shopper. 91.3% of identified revenue is female, 35 to 44 is the dominant age bracket, and the basket lives in a handful of high-AOV metros, New York at $236K and $136 AOV, Dallas at $85K and $147 AOV, Washington at $34K and $151 AOV. The engine is not chasing Gen Z. It is converting the working woman the brand was built for, at a basket she finds reasonable. AOV climbed nearly 19% year over year in a category where most peers are defending AOV against discount pressure, not expanding it.
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Alicia Adams Alpaca: Where nine in ten organic social visitors are meeting the brand for the very first time
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Latest projects
Social Media Marketing
Alicia Adams Alpaca: Where nine in ten organic social visitors are meeting the brand for the very first time
Alicia Adams Alpaca runs organic social as top-of-funnel discovery, not bottom-funnel conversion. Nearly 90% of visitors it sends are first-timers, the brand's highest new-visitor rate of any channel, arriving curious after seeing a styled throw or editorial content, ready to look closer.
Moonglow Jewelry: SEO & AEO, One Data Layer, Three Surfaces
We cleaned up a sprawling Shopify Plus catalog and enriched the product data behind it, structured for search engines and answer engines alike. The result: the blue link, the star-rating rich result, a seat in the AI Overview. Same data. Built to be found. Built to be cited.
