Defender Boosts Add-to-Cart Rates With Conversational Shopping

Defender (owned by FortNine Group) is a marine retailer specializing in marine supplies, inflatable boats, and outboard motors. Founded in 1938, Defender prides itself on knowledgeable staff with a mission of making boating more accessible for enthusiasts across North America.

Defender boosts add-to-cart rate with conversational shopping assistant Bloomreach Clarity

Products

Nearly 3
%
increase in add-to-cart rate
Over 3
%
increase in mobile add-to-cart rate

Challenge

Marine retailer Defender found that it was seeing great in-store success, but now needed to find a way to expand that success online. To achieve this, Defender knew it needed to address several key obstacles with its online experience: 

  • It needed to be conversational. Defender’s success in person came from having conversations with customers. The brand needed to replicate this online in a way that captured the brand’s tone and voice. 
  • It needed to be easy to use. Defender couldn’t dedicate the resources to manually babysit a tool — the solution the brand implemented had to be easy to implement and low maintenance. 
  • It needed to be an expert. Powersports, and especially in the marine industry, is highly reliant on expertise. The solution would have to be able to navigate product complexity without overwhelming the customer. 
  • It needed to be dynamic. The online experience on Defender’s site would fall apart if customers were just getting static recommendations. Defender wanted to be able to adapt to customer needs and preferences in real time. 

Solution

To bring its in-store engagement online, Defender turned to Bloomreach Clarity, a conversational shopping agent capable of engaging customers throughout the entire on-site experience. Clarity opened up new opportunities for Defender: 

  • Easy implementation = greater experimentation. Defender found Clarity to be a low lift to get started, which meant the brand could focus on experimenting and figuring out what worked best for its products. 
  • Conversations across the entire journey. Defender started by adding Clarity to product detail pages (PDPs) on its site, where shoppers could either type a question or click a question prompt to start a conversation. Defender is also implementing Clarity through quizzes on category pages, focusing on high-complexity products first. 
  • Insights into more effective site structure. Through its work with Clarity, Defender now has a better understanding of how to realign its catalog to match how customers search and what they’re looking for. 
  • Expansion into more guided assistance. Not only has Clarity been helpful in giving customers the nudge they need to convert on PDPs, but it’s also proving to be useful for guiding customers on high-complexity products like multifunction displays. 

Here’s How It Worked

  1. Defender synced its product catalog with Clarity and provided additional context to start. 
  2. Clarity was then implemented on PDPs on Defender’s site as part of an A/B test. 
  3. Once customers reached the PDP, they could either select conversation-starter questions or type into a chatbox to engage Clarity and get their questions answered. 
  4. Clarity uses this real-time and in-session behavior to further tailor the experience. 

“I was impressed to see how non-intrusive Clarity was, and we’re excited to increase our level of integration,” said Ramzi Rahbani, the Chief Product Officer at FortNine Group (the owner of Defender). 

Defender_quote-image

Our experience with Clarity has been both exciting and enlightening. Not only has the tool opened up my perspective on agentic commerce, but it’s also giving us impactful new ways to engage with our customers.

Ramzi-headshot

Ramzi Rahbani

Chief Product Officer at FortNine Group (the parent company of Defender)

Results

Thanks to Clarity-powered conversational shopping experiences, Defender saw impactful results from its initial tests on its site: 

  • Nearly 3% increase in add-to-cart rate 
  • Over 3% increase in mobile add-to-cart rate

With the success of the PDP implementation, Defender is looking to move from conversational recommendations to adding even more opportunities for two-way dialogue with Clarity. 

“Clarity has been an accelerator into agentic commerce and a welcome wake-up call into how we shift into more customer-centric approaches,” added Rahbani.

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