How Everlane Advanced Fashion’s Position in E-commerce and Sustainability
I consider myself a conscious shopper. I invest in pieces that I see myself wearing for years, or even generations (if it’s an investment piece). I’m also careful about the brand I’m supporting as a result of my purchase.
However, I wasn’t always like this. I was once that young millennial buying all my trendy outfits from fast fashion brands like Zara, H&M, and Urban Outfitters. Until Everlane happened.
I can’t recall exactly how I first came across Everlane, but it might have been through the influencers I’d been following on Instagram. I made my first purchase on September 2016, the Twill Snap Backpack in Black. At $65 dollars, it was absolutely stunning.
The smooth black canvas had a sheen that made it look durable but not stiff, and the metal and leather touches added a luxurious feel. It made me want to wear backpacks again after years of not wanting to wear one because I thought they didn’t look “cool”.
But ultimately, it wasn’t just their products but the entire customer journey that made me their loyal customer. I became the fan that talks about the brand so much that my friends often ask me, “is this Everlane, too?”
Everlane’s marketing, e-commerce, branding, omnichannel strategy, and customer service all played a role in making me believe that brands can shift consumer behavior for the better. Everlane showed us how much impact the fashion industry can have in e-commerce and sustainability.
Here’s what struck to me about Everlane back in 2016, back when I was a university student.
Marketing
It was refreshing to see a brand that released one product at a time, not an entire collection. While this has become a popular strategy nowadays, it was a novel idea back then.
Below (left) is a newsletter from November 2018, promoting the Modern Ski Sweater, just in time for the holiday season.
Everlane dedicated the entire email to a single product, and nothing else. It showed how much they cared about individual items and the role it would play in our wardrobes. At Everlane, every item was treated like the star of the show.
On the contrary, the emails that you typically get from brands look like the newsletter on the right. 704 new arrivals? I wonder if the J.Crew team even remember all the items they produce.
Despite being very simple, Everlane’s newsletter has all the information one needs to learn about the product. Besides, since you learn so much about the product, you’re much more likely to purchase it because you have more confidence in its quality and function.
Another radical marketing strategy Everlane utilized was their “Choose What You Pay”. For select items, they would offer three different pricings that you can choose to pay based on the one you found to be the deserved price. Since you could see the cost breakdown of every item, it made customers think about what made the most sense.
Mission
At the time, Everlane’s main competitors were other brands creating basics, such as GAP, J.Crew, and Madewell. GAP, unfortunately, had long lost its branding edge. While J.Crew and Madewell also made quality basics, they were trend focused and failed to incorporate sustainability into their mission and branding.
Now, whether Everlane is truly the “radically transparent” company it has claimed to be is a whole other story. But incorporating this in their mission gave Everlane a competitive edge to the ever-more socially conscious consumers.
To be conscious was sexy and cool, and Everlane won its customers through this.
Website UX
Everlane has always had phenomenal user experience on their website, which certainly made it much more enjoyable to shop. To this day, I find Everlane to have one of the best UX among e-commerce sites.
They also found a solution to an issue that continues to be a headache to fashion brands: sizing. Everyone knows the feeling of disappointment when you finally try out the item that you ordered online, only to find it running small or large. By adding a review section where customers include their height, weight, and typical size, customers are able to learn other other people’s experience with the particular item’s sizing and fitting. The key to this review section is that it includes a size, height, and weight filter (see image below).
Another detail utilized by Everlane to ease customers’ sizing selection is the use of different models for each color option. Each model usually wears a different size, and most importantly, are relatable. Every photo includes a detailed description of the model’s height and the size they are wearing, which helps customers imagine how the item would look on their own body.
Nearly six years later, the same Twill Snap Backpack is still my favorite backpack that has kept me company through university, international travels, and everyday errands (along with other Everlane items that are now part of my collection).
But since then, the e-commerce and DTC landscapes have changed tremendously. While Everlane continues to be a model in fashion e-commerce, the birth of new shopping platforms and brands focused on sustainability has made it a challenge for Everlane to keep its competitive advantage.
I have no doubt that Everlane will continue innovating and making quality products that outlast most items in people’s wardrobes.
