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Culture Kings’ shift from images to video drives a 50% interaction rate

50%


of homepage visitors interact with a Tolstoy

8%


of homepage visitors purchased through the Shoppable video feed

Overview

Culture Kings is an omnichannel fashion retailer at the forefront of the global streetwear movement. However, with the shift towards video content, Culture Kings realized their website, which relied on static content, needed to evolve to drive conversions. With their Shopify build bogged down by multiple plug-ins, Culture Kings needed a solution that was easy to deploy and integrated seamlessly with their site.

“We're out here, guns blazing and just absolutely flying at the moment. But the key factor behind why we reached out to Tolstoy is there's only so much you can accomplish with static site content.”

Jarrod Hinvest, eCommerce Manager at Culture Kings

Challenges

  1. Shift away from static site content that is slowly being rendered obsolete.
  2. Streamline their Shopify setup, which was weighed down by too many plug-ins.
  3. Recreate their popular in-store experience on their DTC website.

The team at Culture Kings realized that static site content only goes so far today. Content from TikTok, IG Reels, and YouTube simply outperforms fixed graphics.

The in-house design team at Culture Kings already produced high-quality video content for social media but faced difficulties in effectively implementing it on their website. Culture Kings also aimed to replicate their popular in-store experience on their DTC website, which involved unique and interactive competitions like basketball sharpshooting, which differentiates Culture Kings from other brands.

The numerous plugins in their Shopify setup were hindering their progress. These CX limitations compounded to a breaking point, and the Culture Kings team needed a solution.

Solution

  1. Easily deploy Tolstoy on Culture Kings’s website, with zero back-end slowdown.
  2. Roll out Tolstoy’s interactive pop-ups to feature educational videos for shoppers.
  3. Use shoppable video feeds to create a purchasing journey as addictive as TikTok.

Tolstoy integrated seamlessly into their site with no lag or issues with homepage styling. The interface is also impressively sleek: Adding videos to your site is as simple as clicking a button. Within minutes, videos are live and driving results.

To get started, Culture Kings first implemented Tolstoy’s interactive pop-ups on their homepage. These widgets feature educational videos that users can engage with, teaching them how to apply special promos and take customer surveys. Previously, Culture Kings’ less-than-reliable Shopify back-end would hurt conversion metrics, especially when users abandon their cart because it failed to input their promo codes automatically. That pain point was eliminated entirely with Tolstoy. Now, users are far more likely to watch an educational video and learn how to properly apply a promo code. 

Next, Culture Kings rolled out Tolstoy’s shoppable video feed. The team was able to easily link their TikTok feed with Tolstoy, tag the relevant products on their site, and push it live. Now, customers can scroll through a feed of Culture Kings’ content and easily add the products they like to their cart as they continue to watch product videos. With Tolstoy, the brand creates an all-in-one browsing experience that’s as seamless as swiping on TikTok.

"Using Tolstoy is a completely seamless experience. There's no lag or issues with how it's styled on the homepage or any page. It's a really impressive, sleek tool that makes loading videos to your website as simple as clicking a button."

Results

50%


of homepage visitors interact with a Tolstoy

8%


of homepage visitors purchased through the Shoppable video feed

The implementation of Tolstoy on Culture Kings' website was successful and resulted in an increase in on-site video interaction. Over 50% of homepage visitors interacted with Tolstoy, with 8% of users purchasing through the shoppable feed, resulting in daily product sales of $780 to $3,000.

The interactive pop-ups effectively educated customers on promotions and checkout processes, leading to 25-50% of users successfully activating a promotion and adding items to their cart. The on-site videos also allowed Culture Kings to showcase events and activities at their brick-and-mortar stores. They displayed videos of thousands of people queuing up outside one of their stores to meet Shaq, which further highlights the hype and joy of the Culture Kings community. 

The integration of user-generated content (UGC) has been instrumental in driving customer engagement. Customers find it more relatable to watch videos of influencers wearing the clothing than to see static photos of models. By leveraging organically created UGC, which serves as free content, Culture Kings has effectively boosted conversions through sharing these videos on their website.

"With the new features that Tolstoy's working on at the moment, like having more than one product tagged per video, we feel that the sky's the limit for what our platforms can accomplish together."

The future

The Culture Kings team believes that their partnership with Tolstoy's technology will be long-lasting. They recognize Tolstoy's platform as being at the forefront of eCommerce development, a young company that continually releases new and impressive features every week.

Jarrod, a representative of Culture Kings, praised Tolstoy's offerings as going beyond just videos. He described Tolstoy's team as dedicated to providing brands with the tools they need and being flexible to schedule calls at a time that works best for the client. Culture Kings recognizes Tolstoy's culture as one focused on long-term collaboration.

"The people at Tolstoy seem to be right at the forefront of what's happening in the online environment. The platform is technically in its infancy, but they've already delivered us huge success."

Experience the benefits for yourself