About the Company

Gwen Whiting and Lindsey Boyd weren’t always international soap mavens, delighting fashionistas, value seekers, and environmentalists from New York to New Delhi. Many laundry cycles ago, they were young fashion enthusiasts, launching careers in one of the world’s best-dressed cities. As Gwen and Lindsey invested in building their wardrobes, they were confronted with the frustration of maintaining them: replacing prematurely worn items and paying painful dry cleaning bills. Based on that experience, the Laundress (today a Unilever-owned brand) was born in 2002 — to offer highly effective, plant-based line of laundry and home cleaning products that’s sophisticated, eco-conscious and easy to use.

Products used
PriceBot
Price Optimization
United States
Beauty

The Goal

After being acquired by Unilever, the team realized how intense the competition was in their space. It appeared as if everyone else was releasing eco-friendly fabric care, detergent and home cleaning products. Of course, this wasn’t the case in the early days.

This dynamic brand was the champion of high-quality household goods in the early 2000s, long before the idea of sustainability had all the buzz it has today. Now as part of a larger conglomerate, their budget was not only inflexible, but set a year in advance. This new challenge brought upon laser-focused strategies; how can they optimize every dollar to make sure it goes further than anyone thought possible?

The Strategy

Without stretching their budget to bring on a dedicated conversion rate optimization team or yet another pricey agency, The Laundress was able to stomp out their competition with a special weapon of their own: Tontine. Now, they could analyze every product on their website to pinpoint the perfect price, all at the tap of a few buttons. Different members of their team were able to contribute all at once and learn what their customers are and aren’t willing to pay for, an insight especially valuable in an intensely competitive market.

The Results

The Laundress achieved invaluable success with Tontine, beating their targets for five successive quarters (and breaking a company growth record in the process.) Plus, since every customer began paying more with their newfound “perfect price point,” a dollar spent on paid ads can now go 37% further — pretty meaningful for a brand on a short leash. By nailing down pricing, they were able to determine which products their customers loved and needed most, allowing for a more aggressive push without guessing which products will do well today versus tomorrow.

And finally, this team gained a truly unbeatable benefit — questions that were once reliant on baseless theories are now crystal clear: “If we increase prices for a specific product by a small percentage, will that cause our conversion rate to fall off? Or will people not even care?” and “If we decrease prices a little, will that boost conversion rate? Or is value prop, not pricing, the issue?” With the help of Tontine’s Price Optimization Experts, they can find out in a week or less. Even some of the priciest business intelligence software can’t guarantee that.