As Dressbarn faces the challenges associated with the COVID-19 global pandemic, the nearly 60-year-old retailer has expanded inventory, implemented new website features, and released a new mobile app.
Dressbarn was started in 1962 by Roslyn Jaffe from her home in Stamford, CT, to provide women across America with style and size options for all types of women. The apparel retailer began closing sales last November at its remaining 544 brick-and-mortar retail stores, but it sold the intellectual property assets of Dressbarn and transitioned its e-commerce business to a subsidiary of Retail Ecommerce Ventures LLC.
With no way to predict what was to come in the following months, the new website platform launched on Jan 1, 2020.
“We are seeing that people are continuing to shop online throughout the COVID-19 crisis, and find it advantageous that we pivoted away from the brick and mortar locations to an online presence,” Dressbarn CEO Shayan Zadeh tells RIS. “Because of this, we have been able to better serve our customers during this unprecedented time.”
As e-commerce shopping picks up, Dressbarn has released a new app with all the same conveniences and customer service as its brick-and-mortar business, available on all major app stores including Apple and Google.
“COVID-19 did not challenge the rollout of the app, we were able to launch on schedule,” says Zadeh. “Technology allowed us to stay on track after stay-at-home orders were put in place.”
In addition to the app rollout, the Dressbarn website underwent updated site design and branding. New features include an overall refined shopping experience that makes the online buying process more frictionless, and a refined search functionality to make finding products much easier. In addition, refined support features help customers have the best experience possible.
Dressbarn is also continuing to add inventory in a variety of sizes, including “plus” and “petite” from 2-24, to its website and the Dressbarn app, and will offer promotions and discounts on a regular basis. Shoppers will likely see new arrivals with each visit as the company moves toward Summer 2020 collections of dresses, bottoms, tops, loungewear and jewelry.
“While we were aiming to scale quickly throughout the first half of 2020, COVID definitely slowed us down,” says Zadeh. “That being said, we were able to recover quickly and continue to grow even throughout the crisis.”