SKIMS Breakdown

SKIMS, the shapewear empire co-founded by Kim Kardashian has soared to a $4 billion valuation.  Please scroll through the post to get a breakdown of their traffic, flows, landing pages, email campaigns, and more. 

SKIMS is a traffic machine, averaging over 10 million visitors per month. They are spending a lot on paid search, which could also be fueling the traffic attributed as 'Direct.'

Most of their paid search traffic comes from Google Shopping ads. Prospective customers are using keywords like 'Skims,' 'S k ims,' 'shapewear,' 'bras,' etc.

SKIMS gets most of their traffic to the homepage, with an estimated 20% of visitors landing there. Upon arriving, visitors first encounter a hero slider, followed by various collections and product catalogs as they scroll down to the footer. They also have chat functionality they use the chat app Gorgias.

SKIMS also drives a significant amount of traffic to various collection pages. For instance, we estimate that their 'bodysuit' collection alone accounts for over 15% of traffic at the time of this posting. SKIMS runs a lot of paid traffic to these collection pages.

The collection pages are designed for easy navigation through different products within various collections. At the top, there is a user-friendly picture navigation feature that allows visitors to switch between collections. Additionally, there are side filters enabling prospective customers to sort products by size, style, color etc.

SKIMS also drives a lot of traffic to product pages, with some receiving over 10% of the total traffic. Their product pages are well-optimized, featuring clear pricing and images, easy options for selecting sizes and colors, visible social proof through reviews, AfterPay/Klarna reminders, cross-selling sliders, and comprehensive information on sizing, shipping, and returns.

SKIMS has a well-optimized pre-purchase flow. It begins with a pop-up that collects visitors' email addresses and phone numbers, and also asks for their gender preference. We believe they are using Attentive as their pop-up and SMS provider. And they use gender to collect zero party data and send people down different flows based off sex.

Once you opt-in, their first email welcomes you to the list. It highlights their core mission, showcases various collections, and offers you an invitation to join the community.

SKIMS uses a standard slide-out cart. They employ upselling tactics to encourage customers to qualify for free shipping, as well as cross-selling to increase the average order value (AOV).

SKIMS uses Shopify for their checkout process. It is basic, there's no countdown timers, cross-selling, or upselling, which some stores use to increase conversion rates and average order value. We're noticing more and more scaled up brands lean away from those direct response tactics.

We found an interesting disclaimer below the subtotal box in the checkout. To be honest, we've never seen something like this before and wonder if it is related to fraud prevention.

SKIMS has an abandoned checkout flow for prospective customers who do not complete their purchases. They use Klaviyo to trigger these emails and manage all of their email marketing initiatives.

The abandoned checkout emails start with a hero image, followed by a dynamic product box showing the abandoned items, an Afterpay reminder, cross-selling suggestions, and finally, the footer.

On the thank-you page after checkout, there is a form that collects zero-party data. For a brand as scaled up as SKIMS, it can be challenging to track attribution from every channel. Adding these surveys helps brands gain a clearer picture of where their customers are coming from, allowing them to better calibrate their marketing efforts.

SKIMS also uses standard transactional and shipping emails that are sent whenever there is a shipment update. They use the default Shopify templates for these emails. These emails are triggered from Shopify.

SKIMS starts sending post-purchase emails on the same day as your purchase. At the time of this posting, email one is focused mostly on cross-selling their loungewear collection, showcasing other collections through social proof, highlighting a special 3-for-$35 offer, providing an SMS text opt-in reminder, and offering a buy-now-pay-later option for your next purchase.

The SKIMS unboxing experience was straightforward. The package arrived in a branded polymailer featuring SKIMS artwork. Upon opening, it had a somewhat premium feel.

SKIMS is aggressive with their newsletters, sending over 20 per month by our estimates. They use Klaviyo to send these newsletters.

Their newsletters typically include product launches, joint ventures with other celebrities, special promotions, and features on specific products or collections.

You can tell the follow a clear design style and have implemented an email design system. You can head to Milled to dive deeper into their newsletter strategy.