The e-commerce sector in India continues to grow rapidly with major peaks around the holiday period.

Sometimes a good ol’ sale will give you a baseline jump faster than any new product initiative on a fixed scale of time. Making the sale big therefore is of paramount importance.

At Grofers, we asked ourselves two questions:

Apart from the great deals and irresistible offers, how do we stay ahead of the game when sales and discounts start becoming an industry norm?

How do we pull this off when we aspire to be the number one e-grocer in the country?

We found the answer to be simple and impactful: the VIP Pass.

What’s the VIP Pass?

During Grofers Grand Orange Bag Days (GOBD) every individual who places an order receives 100% cashback in the form of Orange Cash, a cashback that is redeemable at 10% of order value.

To create buzz for GOBD and help us lock in demand for the sale, we ran a sign-up campaign, captioned the VIP Pass. The challenge was to pitch the VIP Pass to customers, despite the fact that the 100% cashback was available to users, irrespective of whether they purchased it.

Therefore, the incentive for the VIP Pass needed to be projected strongly enough that the user would buy it.

Initial & Final Landing Pages

The Why Behind VIP Pass

VIP Pass primarily serves two purposes for the sale

1. It creates a buzz around the sale and helps spread word-of-mouth that something big is happening.
2. It helps in demand forecasting. A user who has purchased the pass is locked in since she has made a financial commitment and therefore is far more likely to shop in the sale

The sign-up proposition pitched for GOBD was the VIP pass. The intent behind the pass was to deliver a special experience to a user during the sale.

But what was the incentive for the user to purchase the VIP Pass? We placed four major value propositions on the table for the user:

1. VIP Deals: Heavily discounted products only available to signed-up users.
2. Partner Offers: Coupon codes granted to signed-up users, to be redeemed on partner platforms (e.g BookMyShow, Faasos, Cleartrip, etc.)
3. Early Access: Exclusive access to the sale, one day before everyone else
4. Click Deals: A new construct where a user achieves product discounting based on the number of clicks her link gets.

VIP Pass Benefits

So now that we know why we did it, let’s get into our story of how we doubled our VIP Pass landing page conversion.

Measurement of Conversion

We calculated conversion as the percentage of the total users who purchase the VIP Pass once they land on the signup page.

Since the quality of users from various sources was subject to inconsistency, we chose a source from which we could be sure we would get a similar kind of user. Hence, we chose the top banner of the Grofers App homepage.

Insight 1: Great Deals Implies Great Sale

By reaching out to converted users and ascertaining their reasons for purchasing the VIP pass, we were able to derive insight about which propositions were most attractive.

One of the stronger hooks for users to purchase the VIP pass was unlocking VIP deals. Therefore it was important to effectively spotlight the deals in order to utilize their full potential.

1. Picking the Right Products is a Game Changer

One of the most important things to validate for VIP deals was what kind of product type was most enticing for customers.

We ran through multiple sets of products, taking into account factors such as price, product type, discounting percentage, etc.

Post multiple iterations we were able to figure out the exact specifics of the products we wished to offer.

Impact: There was a 64% improvement in conversion from our initial roster of products to the final one

Learning: Spotlighting the right products can yield massive returns

2. More Deals means More Excitement

One of the main propositions of the VIP Pass is that the users could check out any number of unique VIP deals should they be available.

So we hypothesized that by showing more deals to the user upfront it should entice her to purchase the pass. We created a new real estate spotlighting 12 deals instead of 4.

Impact: 12 deals visual had a 5% improvement in conversion over 4 deals visual

Learning:Showing more products to the users made the VIP Pass more attractive

3. Spotlight your Star Performers

Sale pages are usually chaotic, banner-laden canvasses that emphasize festivity and occasion. So we experimented with a festive layout that had energy and a party vibe.

What we discovered was whilst the festive layout made the sale attractive, it removed the user focus from the VIP deals amongst other propositions. It became clear that we need to highlight our best-performing assets rather than just tell users that the sale is big.

Impact: A 5% minor decrease in overall conversion by changing the layout to festive

Learning: Putting the focus on your best propositions; not on the overall sale.

Insight 2: Communication is Key

Communication is more important than you think

This one is pretty obvious, isn’t it? Well, we think so too.

But what we were surprised by is the delta that even simple communication changes can produce. Sometimes it’s not that fancy new design that gives you bump.

It’s the boring CTA (call to action) text which can tempt the user. So that said, let’s get into it:

1. Use CTAs to convey value. Don’t just prompt them to buy

Getting a logged out user to convert requires more commitment than a logged in user due to the extra hop he makes of logging in. Therefore she needs to be more convinced to press the button.

To illustrate this point let me show a simple experiment. We changed the text of our main CTA from a generic communication ‘Pay Rs.50 to buy VIP Pass’ to one that stated the reward upfront i.e ‘Pay Rs.50 to save Rs.8100’.

Impact: A 4.8% increase in conversion was observed by changing CTA information

Learning: Convey value proposition for your CTAs

2. Keep the communication tight. Don’t overload the user

A major reason why many people who shopped in our last sale (GOBD1 users) were reluctant to purchase the pass, was because they figured (and correctly so) that they were getting the 100% cashback anyway. So they needed to be explained exactly what extra they were getting by buying the pass.

GOBD Cheat Sheet

Impact: For users who shopped in the previous sale a minor improvement in conversion was observed. For the remaining users the conversion would drop by 5.5%.

Learning: Too much communication can overburden the user. Make sure to only show any extra communication to users who can directly benefit from it.

3. Social Proof is powerful

It is known that Social Proof works. Thus we showcased the number of users who had purchased the VIP pass.

Additionally, we doubled down on this by adding testimonials from users who shopped in our first sale. See for yourself what a delightful experience they had!

User Testimonials

Insight 3: Capitalize on the demand with what works

As a sale grows near, every business expects a rise in demand. GOBD was no different. We wanted to make the most of the increased landings on the platform through improved conversion of the VIP Pass. We used some familiar tactics:

• Notifications to remind the user to purchase the pass
• Updating a banner on the signups page on an hourly basis.