Charlie’s Soap was green long before green was the trendy thing to do. For 50 years, this family-owned laundry powder brand has believed in two things: efficacy and sustainability. And this has helped the company thrive as shoppers seek out natural products for washing their clothes and cleaning their homes. The story of Charlie’s Soap began in North Carolina in 1976, before words like “sustainable,” “natural,” or “biodegradable,” were buzzwords. The founder, Charlie Sutherland, teamed up with his son, Charlie Jr., to create a cleaner for local textile machines that was tough enough to clean industrial equipment but gentle on the workers who maintained the machines. They soon discovered that the formula not only cleaned the machines as intended, but also the textiles. Thus, Charlie’s Soap was born.
“Charlie’s Soap is the best thing you may have never heard of,” says Taylor Sutherland, President of Charlie’s Soaps. “We’re the manufacturer of the number-one selling natural laundry powder in the country. We’ve been at this for almost 50 years.”
The brand steadily grew from one generation to the next, landing on shelves in national chains and becoming a top-selling laundry powder on Amazon.com. After establishing a presence on Amazon.com, the team turned increasing attention to the ecommerce site, CharlieSoap.com. The site launched in 2002 but hadn’t hit its full potential as a sales channel yet. As this mission-centered brand continues to expand and attract customers, it’s successfully used Buy with Prime and Reviews from Amazon to help boost shopper conversion on the ecommerce site by 31% while increasing revenue per visitor by 20%.
Engage customers with storytelling and remarketing
The history and legacy of Charlie’s Soap gives it a powerful differentiator in the green products market—that, along with the fact that the products don’t contain perfumes, dyes, inorganic phosphates, or brighteners, which not only harm the environment but can also irritate the skin.
And the brand has relied on its ecommerce site, CharlieSoap.com, to share those differentiators with shoppers.
“With CharlieSoap.com, we can tell that story in a deep, meaningful way,” Taylor explains. “We educate consumers on our website.”
Although the company sells through other channels, like Amazon.com and physical retailers, its ecommerce site acts as the brand headquarters. It’s where shoppers can become fully immersed in the philosophy of Charlie’s Soap and find out about the four generations of this family business.
Building direct customer relationships is a core part of the growth strategy for Charlie’s Soap, which means that customer information matters. With Buy with Prime, Charlie’s Soap keeps customer information, including order and contact details, that they can use to provide customer service, nurture relationships, and build their brand.
“The ability to keep customer information for Buy with Prime orders is extremely important, and it’s something that we didn’t know we were missing,” he says.
With customer information, Charlie’s Soap can remarket to customers who’ve purchased from the site and encourage them to purchase again. “Remarketing was a strategy that we weren’t employing to the best of our ability,” admits Taylor. “We were basically waiting for customers to come back to us. And even our most loyal customers need a reminder from time to time.”
Now the team can use contact and order details to send personalized outreach to customers who checked out using Buy with Prime to remind them that it might be time to stock up. They can proactively nurture customers to help drive a steady stream of reorders.
Help boost conversions with authentic reviews
When people are shopping online and considering a purchase from a brand that they’re unfamiliar with, authentic reviews can mean the difference between a window shopper and a new customer.
Charlie’s Soap added Reviews from Amazon to product pages, so shoppers can see authentic reviews from its Amazon.com listings on product pages on CharlieSoap.com. Reviews from Amazon is a feature available to Buy with Prime merchants that displays product reviews and ratings from customers on Amazon.com directly on a merchant’s ecommerce site.
“It was very exciting to bring our Amazon.com reviews to CharlieSoap.com because there are thousands upon thousands of positive five-star reviews across our products on Amazon.com,” he says. “This allows us to very easily bring those reviews to our ecommerce site without any added expense.”
Before adding Reviews from Amazon, Charlie’s Soap Natural Powder Laundry Detergent had nearly 3,500 reviews on Amazon.com with a star rating of 4.7 out of 5. Its Oxygen Bleach Non-chlorine Bleach had more than 800 reviews with a star rating of 4.6.
“Reviews are very advantageous to explaining the brand and adding that trust,” Taylor says. “It makes the buying experience and the decision to make a purchase that much easier.”
Taylor was curious whether the Amazon reviews on CharlieSoap.com would boost conversion on products that were available for Buy with Prime checkout, so he put it to the test. The team conducted a performance impact analysis using A/B testing that compared conversion rates of when the Amazon reviews were displayed on the product pages against the conversion rates of when they were removed, among randomized shoppers.
The results of the A/B test were significant. Shopper conversion on CharlieSoap.com increased 31%, and revenue per visitor increased 20%.
Build trust with Buy with Prime
In addition to Reviews from Amazon, Charlie’s Soap also relies on the trust of Prime to win over new shoppers. When shoppers land on CharlieSoap.com, it might be the first time that they’re interacting with the brand. Seeing the familiar Prime logo and the Buy with Prime button helps site visitors feel confident in the shopping experience and the brand offering it.
“As soon as a shopper sees Buy with Prime, it’s instant trust,” Taylor says. “It takes the stress out of the purchasing process.”
That’s essential for Charlie’s Soap, because the laundry detergent space is crowded. And because the company’s soaps are a higher concentration than other brands, they have a higher price point per unit compared to competitors (even though the price per load is comparable). That makes it more important than ever for Charlie’s Soap to earn trust on its site and convert shoppers. Seeing the Buy with Prime button and the Prime delivery promise on the product page helps to earn that trust with Prime members.
“When a shopper is looking for something new in a laundry detergent, the majority of the products out there are under $10. So, all of a sudden, you’re about to spend $20, $30, or even $40,” explains Taylor. “That hurdle can be a difficult one to overcome, but seeing the Buy with Prime button and getting the fast shipping and easy returns helps take the anxiety down.”
And that ease can help turn a casual browser into a customer.
Ultimately, Taylor appreciates how Buy with Prime brings his company closer to customers and closer to its mission from day one: a greener, safer world.
