Combat Iron Apparel: conversion rate up 35 percent in six months.

The challenge

Combat Iron Apparel is a lifestyle apparel brand. Apparel shoppers are quick to browse and quick to leave, and the brand came to us struggling with a low conversion rate.

The work needed to give first-time visitors a reason to trust the brand sooner, remove the interruptions that pushed them away, and make larger orders more attractive.

What we did

• Rebuilt the homepage around social proof and reviews. Reviews and social proof moved to the front, so new visitors saw other buyers before they saw a sales pitch.
• Reduced unnecessary pop-ups. Fewer interruptions meant fewer reasons to close the tab.
• Optimized product pricing. Pricing was reviewed and optimized rather than left where it had always been.
• Gamified the free-shipping progress bar. A progress bar showed shoppers how close they were to free shipping.
• Introduced a free gift over a set cart size. A gift above a cart threshold rewarded larger orders.
• Implemented post-purchase upsells and offers. Offers after checkout added profit to completed orders without risking the conversion.

How the program ran

Different brands, different profit levers, same process every time. For Combat Iron Apparel, as for every client, the work started with research: session recordings, heat maps, analytics, reviews and the questions customers ask. Ideas were ranked by expected business impact, then designed, written and built in-house. Each change was checked by QA before and after launch, and results were read against revenue, order value and margin rather than clicks.

Winners shipped in coordination with the brand’s own team. Losing tests were reported in the same detail as winners, because a program learns as much from what does not work. Andrew Cowan, Parah Group’s founder and a former brand-side CMO, runs every account personally, so the person reading the results is the person deciding what comes next.

The result

Conversion rate rose 35 percent in six months. Every number in this case study was published with the client’s permission.

What other brands can take from this

• Proof belongs where the doubt appears, which for new visitors is the homepage.
• Every pop-up is a trade; most stores have more than they need.
• Conversion and order value levers work best together.

Related services: Ecommerce CRO, Shopify CRO, Instagram ads. More results are on the case studies page, and the person behind every account is introduced on About Andrew Cowan.