Missguided is anything but misguided

Online fashion retailer Missguided.com has just posted some pretty good results for 2011. Sales of £14.7 million, which represents a 380% increase on the previous year. Not bad in the current retail climate.

Is there some secret they could share with us all? Well not so much a secret as just doing a few things right. This is not rocket science but it is about understanding that success in eCommerce is about getting many small things right rather than searching for some magic bullet.

The first thing is to understand your market, have the right product at the right price and offer a good service. These were fundamentals for success long before the internet came along, This is something which seems to be forgotten by many.

Thereafter, use the medium correctly. The Missguided website has some very nice features which builds interest and confidence. It’s not clever functionality just for the sake of it, it’s things that the visitor would find helpful in looking and making a decision.

For example:

• A static top level navigation when scrolling down makes it easier for shoppers to navigation back and forth
• Well laid out products pages with a very visible “Add To Bag” button which can be seen without scrolling.
• The Trends area has its own sub navigation to target specific visitor types 
• Lifestyle shots rather than static images

There’s much more. Just click at the bottom to visit the site.

Beyond the site, Missguided has an engaging Facebook and Twitter presence and a mobile app. It’s not all positive, as accessing the site through a browser on my phone wasn’t a great experience – always good to have something to work on.

Spend some time on it to see what’s different about what you do and what they do. It's the attention they give to small details that are important. Click through to the site here and I’m sure you’ll pick up something useful. Missguided.com