Company

Aéropostale is a mall-based clothing retailer with more than 700 stores around the U. S. Aéropostale caters to male and female buyers between the ages of 14 and 17 years old. Founded in 1987, the company sells high-quality, active-oriented, fashionable merchandise at affordable prices. Aéropostale sells in malls and through its online retail site, aeropostale.com. In fiscal 2006, Aéropostale achieved net sales of $1.4 billion.

One of the tools Aéropostale often uses to bring in customers is promotions. These may include free items with a $100 purchase, lowered or free shipping on purchases totaling a certain amount, and percent off sales. The promotions clearly pay off.

Approach

Aéropostale's young clientele is extremely comfortable on the Web, with a lot of experience in online purchasing. With that in mind, the company takes a cutting-edge approach. "Our checkout for customers who are registered users is a quick and easy process," says Christina Callas, Aéropostale's Vice President of E-commerce. "Our initial reaction to Google Checkout was that it was a great way to expand our reach to young, web savvy customers with an even faster checkout."

Aéropostale was also intrigued by Google Checkout's promotions. "We learned about the promotions and thought Checkout would be a revenue driver," Callas said. "We were also attracted to being among a select group of retailers who were the first to market with a new e-commerce feature." With these reasons in mind, Aéropostale became an early adopter of Google Checkout in June 2006.

Results

	"The week we started the Checkout promotion our sales through Checkout were 20 percent of all transactions. The following week when the promotion was running, they doubled to 40 percent."

At the outset, Aéropostale did not run specific Google Checkout promotions other than a small Google AdWords&trade search-based advertising campaign during the holiday season. "We did minimal AdWords and search engine marketing," recalls Callas. "First awareness happened organically." Despite this low-key approach, Checkout caught on quickly with Aéropostale customers.

When Aéropostale began running promotions, they boosted the benefits of Checkout even more. In October 2006, Aéropostale tried Google Checkout's $10 off a $30 purchase. "The week we started the Checkout promotion our sales through Checkout were 20 percent of all transactions," says Callas. "The following week when the promotion was running, they doubled to 40 percent." And these sales weren't just coming from existing Aéropostale customers – over 90% of customers that choose to use Google Checkout are new to Aéropostale.

Google Checkout also helped Aéropostale convert more of their traffic into sales. Aéropostale's conversion rate with Google Checkout was 48 percent in December – nearly half the customers who clicked on the Google Checkout button completed their purchase. "Google Checkout was helpful in driving our fourth quarter online sales goals," says Callas. "It adds to the level of excitement when customers are really tuned into additional financial incentives."

Aéropostale plans to further increase awareness and the allure of Google Checkout by layering Checkout promotions on top of other retail promotions, and by featuring Checkout prominently in an upcoming email campaign. Says Callas, "Aéropostale customers get excited by deals, and Google gives us a way to get them even more excited and drive more sales."