Austin Camera Seller: +35% increase in New Visitor Revenue
Cute.Camera, an Austin-based vintage camera retailer, had nailed its brand voice and built an engaged Gen Z following on social media — but its website lagged behind in converting that traffic. By improving product descriptions, clearly labeling item conditions, and spotlighting a 30-day no-hassle return policy, we removed friction from the buying journey. The result: 35.63% more revenue from new visitors and a 24.07% lift in new visitor conversions, proving that clear, confidence-boosting content drives real results.
Cute.Camera is true to its name: In a sea of bland camera resellers, the Austin, TX-based purveyor of vintage film equipment had built a strong brand identity, with Gen Z-skewing colors — hot pink, seafoam blue — and social media campaigns that emphasized the desirability of uncoupling the buyer from their digital yokes. Parties, vacations, morning commutes — all literally looked better on film.
Those successes belied a resilient truth: There was room for improvement in the brand’s conversion, as well as a desire to more fully align Cute.Camera’s successful social media campaigns with its website.
Our mission: to boost the brand’s revenue, with a secondary goal of similar upswings in their conversion rate. Here’s how to did it, with a 35.63% in revenue from new visitors, and a nearly 14% increase from all visitors.
Cute.Camera is an Austin, Texas-based retailer of vintage cameras. Unlike many of their rigorously bland competitors, Cute.Camera has a visual environment designed for fun: Splashy graphics are hot pink and aquamarine, and emojis are distributed liberally, including within product copy. For founder Ian Lindstrom, this is part and parcel of communicating directly to his young buyers — Gen Zs and Gen Alphas looking to avoid their older siblings’ (and parents’) digital burnout. No demographic has borne the brunt of the ongoing experiment that is social media more than their peers, and so for them, digital photos are a handy way to document their everyday lives — but also an entry point for public shaming and political upheaval. Lindstrom’s brand ensures a safe, cordoned-off world unique to them and their true followers (i.e. friends and family).
So, with the brand identity on lock — how could he improve his website’s conversion — and capitalize on all the traffic coming his way from social?
That’s where we stepped in. On social, we saw that Cute.Camera’s messaging was clear and persuasive. Once they arrived at the site, this messaging became diffuse, and the transactional spaces failed to convert them.
Below, you’ll see how we tackled this problem.
Starting points
The vintage and reseller market has been transformed over the past few years.
The tremendous growth of clothing resellers aimed at young buyers has forced thrift stores to radically reconsider their missions and shaped brand pricing strategies on a global scale. Many reselling sites, such as Depop, not just cater to young buyers but are powered by young sellers — so Lindstrom’s buyers have a high degree of familiarity and an openness to buying used products online.
We observed that while he has an excellent return policy — giving shoppers 30 days for no-questions-asked returns — this wasn’t displayed sufficiently to qualm buyers’ concerns.
Vintage cameras are highly in demand — but for vintage retailers, the question of fully communicating the operational aspects of each item remain. How can a would-be buyer truly know that the price is worth the piece? The condition of a vintage dress can be successfully communicated through pictures — a vintage camera, not so much.
With all this in hand, we got to work.
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Our research found that buyers wanted more and better information about the cameras they were poised to purchase. We observed this across users during the testing phase of our research process; it was similarly noted even by existing customers. That this was true even for returning customers — who self-identified as brand loyalists — was notable: Even those who had reason to trust the brand, by virtue of a previous, positive experience, felt qualms.
It was clear that Cute wasn’t conveying a full picture to the demands of its buyers — especially new ones.
I. Acting on this instinct
Both groups — new buyers and existing customers — had the same concerns: How could they trust their investment was a wise one? Ultimately, no matter how persuasive Cute’s messaging, clicking the Buy button felt like a gamble.
We knew that minimizing that sense of risk would be key to changing this unfortunate perspective.
We expanded the descriptions of each camera’s qualities, and made it easier to access — we wanted each of the three ratings (Average, Good, and Very Good) were as clear as possible. Because Lindstrom often has cameras of each of the three ratings available, customers could easily tab through the ratings, observe the price differences, and understand how the different variations would determine the quality of their purchase. Ultimately, they were empowered to balance their costs against the quality of the camera purchased.
And of course, we made sure that Cute’s ample 30-day, hassle-free return policy was well advertised at every step.
They’ve lowered our CAC (customer acquisition costs), and our ad spend is down 50%. One of their tests increased our revenue by 30%. We’ve already implemented three tests and seen huge improvements. I’m very happy with their work—it’s already paid for itself and continues to do so.
II. Our results
We were confident in our hypothesis, and indeed, our changes led to easy-to-see results:
Revenue Increases
New Visitors: 35.63% Increase
All Visitors: 13.82% Increase
Conversion Rate Increases
New Visitors: 24.07%
All Visitors: 13.82%
If you’d like similar results for your brand, reach out to schedule a consultation. If we can’t boost your conversion rate by 10% in 60 days, we’ll work for free until we do.
Cute.Camera, a retailer specializing in vintage cameras, discovered that their website wasn't converting visitors into customers as effectively as their social media campaigns. Their target audience is Gen Z and Gen Alpha, so they've cultivated a fun and visual brand identity that appeals to younger shoppers. However, the transactional areas of their website weren't living up to the brand's promise.
After some investigation, they found that potential customers were hesitant to purchase without more information about the cameras. The perceived risk of buying a vintage camera online was a major barrier to conversion. To address this, Cute.Camera expanded the camera descriptions on their website, added quality ratings, and made sure to emphasize their 30-day hassle-free return policy. These changes gave shoppers the confidence they needed to make a purchase, resulting in a significant 35.63% increase in revenue from new visitors and a notable 24.07% boost in their conversion rate for new visitors. By providing more information and reducing the perceived risk, Cute.Camera was able to align their website with their brand identity and create a seamless and effective online shopping experience.
